Building and for saying youre fired on the apprentice. The former tv star carried some reality show habits with him to the oval office, seems particularly fond of one specific game show device, the tease. Well now unlike tv, where the goal is to get to you come back after the commercial break, trumps teases seem designed to keep us on the edge of our news feeds, thus distracted from his many scandals. Trump tweeted for weeks to tee up his final decision on the paris climate accord. It was 3 00 p. M. On may 31st. Did you tune in live . Spoiler alert, it was not a hit. And earlier that month trump had the entire nation waiting for the answer to one question. Are there tapes of his conversation with former fbi director james comey who before he was fired was running the russia investigation. This week when we finally got the big reveal trump does not have any recordings and never actually did, we learned the original tapes tweet was unlike his other teases. It wasnt meant for us, it seems like it was meant exclusively for james comey before the Senate Intelligence committee. When he found out that i, you know, there may be tapes out there, whether its governmental tapes or anything else, and who knows, i think his story may have changed. Youll have to take a look at that. My story didnt change. My story was always a straight story. My story was always the truth. Reporter it was a smart way to make sure he stayed honest in his hearings. Well, it wasnt very stupid, i can tell you that. The thing is, when a misleading tease is meant to influence an audience of one, the man in charge of the investigation that could take trump down, perhaps that tease is less of a trump show cliffhanger and more of a device for witness intimidation. Joining us now is malcolm nance, author of the plot to hack America Business and political Marketing Consultant tara dowdell, david jones from mother jones and former special prosecutor jill wein banks. No chair turns and do you not have to sing. Thank you so much for being here. Lets start with that question of why, tara. You know donald trump probably better than most of us on this panel here. Why would he have set up this sort of long lengthy, you know, suspense about whether he had tapes . Your point in the open donald trump is carrying practices over from reality tv. The apprentice is the most successful thing he has ever done and he is well aware of that, so donald trump is the type of person if it worked for him in the past hell do it again as long as he thinks its going to work for him and he thinks this strategy the tease as you coined it, works for him. The other dynamic is, donald trump the reason why we saw him reveal it was, in fact, a tease and that there are no tapes the reason why is because when he does something he feels is strategic, he wants the credit. So when the reporter asked him, when the host asked him and said, that was a very smart strategy, that right there was the bait, and so for someone like donald trump, he was not going to let that go, because he wants people to know, just like when he fired comey and his staff went out and said it wasnt the president , and the next day he said i fired comey because donald trump wants the credit. Jill weinbanks, one of the problems is that donald trump may in his own mind as tara said have this attitude im doing this, getting the credit and getting emotional payoff from doing it. Couldnt pretending there were tapes and admitting he did it in order to send a message to jim comey could that be witness intimidation or tampering . It could be. I think the combination of facts is really what becomes intimidation. That in and of itself isnt that significant but add that tweet to all of the other things he did, the conversation he had in the white house to his firing comey, all of those things make you view the tweet differently and could be intimidation. David corn, a former white house ethics lawyer, actually wrote in the hill or tweeted in the hill tweeted out that the lack of the comey tapes and the fact that there never were any, donald trump knew there werent any but said it any in his own words to send a message to comey that it actually is witness intimidation. It may be. Ive heard other people say, its hard to make the case if youre doing it to get somebody to tell the truth as to cover up something. In any event its absurd for weeks and weeks he wouldnt answer the question and ultimately his position is, i had to lie or suggest a lie in order to get someone else not to lie. This is a president who says that he was wire tapped in trump tower when he wasnt, who suggests he has tapes of the comey meetings when he doesnt, and then he complains about fake news. I mean, the cognitive dissidence here should be his Campaign Motto next time. Make america confused again. I mean its really, its kind of sad that the media didnt at one point at least the White House Press corps walk out of the press conferences when sean or he would not give an answer to this very simple question. Or when they wouldnt let them record. Well talk about that later. Malcolm one of the things thats happening behind the scenes in addition to donald trump putting up all of those shows for us and sort of doing entertainment as part of his presidency, behind the scenes he seems to be significantly concerned about this probe. There was a piece, nbc news did this reporting the dan coats, the director of National Intelligence told house investigators even though he wouldnt say it in the open hearing, he said his feelings, he didnt want to talk about conversations but behind closed doors he told the House Committee that trump did seem obsessed with the russia probe. Sure, absolutely. Weve within at this for almost a year, ten months at this point. Why . Why is donald trump on sensed with covering up this probe . Its a National Counter espionage investigation that now appears that it looks, based on the lawyers, that director mueller has hired, is now going into a massive financial fraud and ricoh investigation. One of those two things is going to happen or both, espionage tied to dirty money or a massive dirty money thing. Trump has to be concerned about that and he thinks as a big Real Estate Developer can he get away with it. Hes not going to get away with it. Mueller is playing a reality show, called president ial apprenti apprentice and only one contestant and one result that comes from the end of it, youre either fired or not fired. I think trump is terrified of that. At the risk of asking to you psychoanalyze him, tara, this guy refused to release his tax returns. Theres obviously something in the way he does business he doesnt want revealed through the tax rushes. Behind the scenes, whatever hes doing theyve got to be concerned. Theyre not digging into the way that he does business and he does do business with some characters that have got some ties to some interesting russian money, put it that bay. Not just russia, other countries with shady characters as well. His family is continuing to do business in countries that are highly suspect, human rights abuses. Donald trump is used to getting away with things. That is what hes done his entire life. Hes gotten away with taking advantage of people, not paying people, corruption. Hes gotten away with so much, now he knows things are a little bit different this time. I think he has awareness that things are different this time, thats why he closed the door when he was in the meeting with comey, why hes behaving and hiding information, the notion that he does not know that the vices around his neck is a false notion, because his behavior is indicative of someone that knows there is trouble and consistent with how hes behaved in the past when hes had trouble. The difference is hes gotten away with it. I think he knows the stakes are higher and the game is a lot different. The jeopardy here is this is not independent counsel, not a ken starr situation. This is a prosecuteor that in theory the president could fire. He could world Rod Rosenstein the Deputy Attorney general to fire mueller or he could just somehow get him out n theory. Can you talk a little bit about the jeopardy here that this is an investigation that could go in a lot of different directions, right . Its not limited just to rushqwan gate. It is not limited, all it may sound trite remember in watergate the phrase follow the money because i think your question to the last guest is really on point, and that it is the financial wrongdoings that may be the undoing of this president , and that the investigation can easily go to those kinds of dealings to looking at what would we see if we saw his tax returns . What are his dealings with the russian banks . Why was Jared Kushner meeting with a sanctioned bank . There seems to be no legitimate explanation for that, and this investigation is led by someone who is greatly respected by many, by almost everyone, maybe not by President Trump, who is now trying to impugn his credibility, but that hasnt been successful and so i think that it could really lead to something much bigger, and he made a big mistake when he took actions that led to the appointment of the special prosecutor, and our Deputy Attorney general has said he will not fire him, except for cause, which means the president would have to repeat the saturday night massacre, hed have to fire Rod Rosenstein so he could appoint someone to carry out his order to fire mr. Mueller. You already, david, have donald trump trying to find an ally to put in charge of the fein. Hes clearly trying to create loyalists that can protect him. It doesnt seem likely can he in any way get in muellers way. He is in a bad spot. He has a guy who has a tremendous amount of experience, experience around him. I did a story this week, its a little complicated, bun fellow who was involved in a prosecution of felix sater, a Real Estate Developer is on the team of mueller so there are different areas of the investigation but one big point that i dont want people to lose sight of. It becomes clearer and clearer every single day that donald trump aided and abetted putins operation against United States and the election. Throughout the whole summer and even after the election, after the u. S. Government said it was putin doing this, and that it was a russian operation, he kept denying it was happening. Thats the same thing as aiding and abetting, like being outside a bank robbery and saying nothing is going on when you know whats going on inside. Thats the big sin, goes beyond the financial stuff. He helped this operation. And malcolm, he essentially admitted he knew about it today in a tweet. In his tweet yesterday he put out, essentially, its actually fascinating to learn that donald trump watches msnbc and is a big fan and that being said i have something i have something id like to say to him, right . As president of the United States that i beg you, i beg you, come out and tell us that whatever you know and whatever your staff knows about russia and collusion with wikileaks, throw them under the bus, right, save yourself, but lets get this nation past that, and if he cant understand that, he needs to take a long walk around that building that he lives in and look at all the people in this history who have protected this democracy. Otherwise he doesnt have any interest in protection the nation. You can talk to him through the tv. He may have heard that. Thank you very much. Up next, donald trump finally does acknowledge russias election attack and all it took was the chance to say its all president obamas fault. Stay with us. microphone feedback listen up, Heart Disease. You too, unnecessary er visits. And hey, unmanaged depression, dont get too comfortable. Were talking to you, cost inefficiencies and data without insights. And fragmented care stop getting in the way of patient recovery and pay attention. Every single one of you is on our list. For those who wont rest until the world is healthier, neither will we. Optum. How well gets done. Isaac hou has mastered gravity defying moves to amaze his audience. Great show. Here you go. Now hes added a new routine. Making depositing a check seem so effortless. Easy to use chase technology, for whatever youre trying to master. Isaac, are you ready . Yeah. Chase. So you can. The president is concerned about that interference . He commented i think it was january 5th or 17th, Something Like that, on that at the time and he said, russia probably interfered but maybe some other countries did as well. He said i think it was russia but i think we also get hacked by other countries and other people. Thank you. Is he concerned about that . Of course hes concerned about any country or any actor that wants to interfere in our elections. I confirm he stands by that. This, note the lack of video there on the same day the Washington Post dropped another bombshell report revealing last summer u. S. Intelligence agencies had sourcing deep inside the russian government reporting that Vladimir Putin was directly involved in a Cyber Campaign targeting our election. The mission, defeat or damage Hillary Clinton and help elect trump. The Obama Administration debated dozens of options for deterring or punishing russia but according to the post obama feared things could get far worse and any action perceived as political interference in an already volatile campaign. Joining me is former president ial Campaign Manager evan mcmullen, former cia open and navid jamali former fbi double agent and author of how to catch a russian spy. Evan i have to get your reaction to donald trump finally acknowledging last night by his favorite medium twitter that the russians did meddle in the election. He blamed it on obama. Just out they knew far in advance meddling by russia and did nothing about it. Why do you make of blaming obama but acknowledging it . He cannot resist attacking former president obama. Two things he cant resist. Bnai hes being investigated if he can still do that the second thing is to attack president obama. This is a distraction. Hes speaking to his remaining 35 to 40 of the u. S. Voter population that he need to hold onto, to protect himself in the house. The house is important because as the investigations move forward if theres serious wrongdoing he may need the house to protect him from impeachment. This is throwing up a distraction to confuse the public. Does it concern you this tweet indicates he was fully aware of what russia was doing. This is the consciousness of knowing it happened an hes denied it happened up until now. Thats a given. He absolutely knows. It was in the open, in the obvious. He knew what was happening, he encouraged it. Thats a given. He may try to confuse the matter and he does and has for months but of course he knows. Im not surprised by that. There is a politics that Washington Post story was bombshell we tried to pick out a few nuggets in it, one of them was the refusal of republicans to react to what was hair on fire defcon 1 information coming out of the highest levels of the white house and the National Security apparatus that russia was actively interfering with our election. Something weve been talking about on this show since last july and clearly the Obama Administration was sending alarms about. Lets talk about Mitch Mcconnell. Mitch mcconnell according to this blockbuster Washington Post story, republicans resisted doing anything in response, arguing to warn the public the election was under attack would further russias aim. Senator Majority Leader Mitch Mcconnell voicing skepticism that the underlying intelligence supported white house claims. The highest levels of the Republican Party were saying we dont necessarily believe this or want to do neglect about it. August 5th jeh johnson tried to enlist the support of state officials z a Conference Call asking for them to secure their own systems. Brian kemp, republican secretary of state in georgia used that call to denounce johnsons proposal as an assault on state rights saying i think its a politically calculated move by the Previous Administration. Adding he remains unconvinced russia waged a campaign to disrupt the 2016 race. Thats a greater level of denial than donald trump. What do you make of that . This is part of a pattern of the Republican Party during the campaign, disregarding National Security interests, so its a divide between policy and politics and unfortunately given the election season politics prevailed. You had cia analysts who were deep in the russian government, giving information through the cia channels. These are not people who are partisan in any way raising it through their chain, directly to the president saying that this is a National Security problem, and not only something that we see in the United States, but weve seen patterns of this elsewhere, for russia to undermine democracies throughout europe and given the timing of it, the people in charge of National Security in congress and for oversight really werent able to look past the partisan politics. Neither in a sense i should note Mitch Mcconnell sent a letter september 28th, mcconnell and the other senators issued a cautious statement to ensure their networks were secure from an attack. It made no mention of russia. Navid, this Washington Post story went into detail what they were trying