We will begin with also a dramatic day at the trial of Paul Manafort. Long time business part rick gates was back on the stand and didnt Hold Anything back. Turning what had been a dry case about tax and bank records into a political soap opera. Today even challenging gates about an affair he had in london. Focusing on the financial details. Describing how under manaforts direction he falsified multiple documents about manaforts income. The prosecution also presented various documents including emails with manaforts own words showing he had knowledge of the fraudulent activity. Complaining about the taxes
Chris Matthews debates hot political issues with politicians, newsmakers and Washington leaders. Manafort. Paul manafort was aware of thighs bank accounts. Of course he was. He had control of them and secondly showed his involvement in alleged bank fraud and by the end, in 2016 when manafort was scrambling for money, over stated the income to get a loan from the bank. Cross examination did not impeach that testimony. I have a feeling the prosecutor will say we dont like gates, but we didnt pick gates, manafort picked gates. We have other evidence. Joyce, what are you thinking about that. What ken is describing, the prosecution has a star witness there. He has to admit to all of these things as we went through yesterday just to sort of have his testimony stand maybe he looks uneasy today. As ken said, the heart of gates testimony backed up by emails and documents was not impeached and prosecutors when they close they will have the chance to remind the jury that gates was manaforts pick not theirs. In terms of the political world, the court of public opinion, where does this one land right now . Of course this is officially about manaforts business conduct, consulting business, all of his dealing in ukraine and russia. The campaign is peripheral to this. In politics how is this land something. Because this is the first actual trial of the mueller era, a presumption that this is going to come out as a litmus test on
muellers investigation. Critics of mueller will seize upon it and mueller didnt do his due diligence. That will be how it is received. It is important to step back and recognize that we are talking about a specific trial and specific standards. That reasonable doubt has to apply to laws. I think the important things that came out today were first of all, that revelation that manafort had tried to hook up a favor for this banker who had given him a loan. But i think also important to note the broader context, the New York Times reporting that manafort and gates did additional work for ukraine after they helped the president get elected. They kept doing work for him. That is the bigger picture. Manafort, gates and ukraine and broadly russia. That is important to keep in
mind. As ken was describing for us, tensions running high at times in the courtroom. An exchange that one of the prosecutors was crying. The judge said quote, i understand how frustrated you are, in fact there are tears in your eyes right now. And prosecutor said there are not tears in my eyes, judge. The judge replied, well, they are watery. I have not been through enough trials to why he would be picking on the prosecutor. No secret that the prosecution is annoyed with the judge. At the end of the day, ellis made a remarkable comment that
struck observers that is openly in favor. Essentially, adopting the defense view of gates. Gates is admitting that he embezzled the money. Raising questions about the prosecution and a lot of people remarked on that. It seems that ellis is openly skeptical. What is your experience with that in a trial where the judge is giving off clues or potential clues with Body Language and comments. Is it reliable in how the judge is thinking about this . Judges can influence juries. And sometimes the juries will bond with the judge and read the signals like that in essence. The incident that ken is describing is difficult to contemplate why a federal judge
would do this. On cross examination, the judge interjects to make a comment that manafort cant have been looking at his finances carefully if gates managed to embezzle this money from him as though to imply that manafort didnt know about the tax fraud or bank fraud. It is troubling. Prosecutors have thick skin. They will shake it off and move on. When you take a step back and take a view of these, when manafort came into the trump campaign, before there was a mueller, before an investigation, there were revelations about manafort and his relationship. Should a president ial candidate, potential president be bringing someone like this in the first place. We should remember that trump picked manafort. No one foisted manafort upon him except of course trump at that time was continuing to have a problem with getting Establishment Republicans as a part of his team. But you are right, this is donald trump had insisted that he was going to hire only the best people at one time. Paul manafort ran his campaign for a series of months and there is already enough out there brought to the publics attention to further impugn who he hires. There is no way this is possibly good for President Trump. Manafort had been a name at one point in republican politics for two decades and suddenly he was in the middle of things. Thank you all for being with us. And coming up, Rudy Giuliani says the president s lawyers are reluctant to let their client sit down with mueller if there
are any questions on obstruction of justice. Are we finally reaching the breaking points. In less than 20 minutes the polls are going to close out in ohio. Can democrats flip a district that has been in republican hands for decades. A district that trump won by 11 points. Campaigning for republican in the home stretch. We are going to bring you all of the early numbers as they come in. Some election excitement, election drama. This is hardball where the election action is tonight. Cars. Making cars lighter, its a good place to start, advanced oils for those hardworking parts. Fuels that go further so drivers pump less. Improving efficiency is what we do best. Energy lives here. You shouldnt be rushed into booking a hotel. With expedias addon advantage, booking a Flight Unlocks discounts on select hotels until the day you leave for your trip. Addon advantage. Only when you book with expedia. Nbc news has confirmed that the Trump Administration is considering a proposal to make it harder to get green cards. Immigration rights advocates say the move will force Illegal Immigrants from gaining status as u. S. Citizen or providing food and health care for their families. Be right back. Your Brain Changes as you get older. But prevagen helps your brain with an ingredient
originally discovered. In jellyfish. In clinical trials, prevagen has been shown to improve shortterm memory. Prevagen. Healthier brain. Better life. Trap for the president. Giuliani has convinced trump that mueller doesnt have a case against him. For more, i am joined by jonathan swan, and correspondent for the pbs news hour. Jonathan, what are you hearing here . They wont get the Letter Out To Mueller today but likely tomorrow. There are two areas in which they have major concerns. They dont want trump to be asked questions about why he fired james comey and They Dont Want Trump to be asked questions about the conversation he had with james comey regarding michael flynn. When trump told him if he could
find a way to see to not investigate flynn. Rudy giuliani says trump has answered that in public and in other places and doesnt want to go under oath to answer them. And besides that, it sounds like they are not ruling out answering questions related to obstruction of justice. They are not putting a hard and fast rule about no questions surrounding obstruction of justice. But those are two of the substantial, when you talk about obstruction of justice, those are two fairly central stories that would have to be reconciled. Anyway, we are still at an impasse, and still debating. But trump wants to do the interview. And whenever we have talked to people who have spoken to the president , they say he is eager to sit down with them. And the question is whether his lawyers can restrain him. I dont know. In terms of what mueller, what his team might think of this. If the offer from the president s team is sure, go ahead and talk to him, dont talk to him about comey. Do you think that is anything that mueller could work with . I talked to Rudy Giuliani myself, and he vacillated everyday. And that is because in his conversations with muellers team, he is starting to feel as though, he is getting nervous, essentially. I have talked to people, and the president wants to clear his name. He feels he can get in the room and sit down and talk to mueller. This is a president who has gone with his gut and thinks he understands how to work a room. But Rudy Giuliani and the
president s other lawyers are worried about whether or not mueller is going to stick to those things. And it is a central question of whether or not he fired james comey to stop the Mueller Problem im sorry, stop the looking into russia and into the connection of russian and his campaign. So there is this idea if he says he is not going to ask him about why did you fire james comey, that is a key question. It is going to be hard for mueller to say no, i am not going to ask you that question. Senator Lindsey Graham who golfed with the president over the weekend told a group of reporters saying he warned the Mueller Investigation would here is that exchange. Why dont the two of you step up and stop the mueller
investigation . Well, did trump ask that question . Must have mentioned that about 20 times. I told the president , i know you dont like it, i know you feel put upon. You just got to ride it out. I want to win in november. If we stop the Mueller Probe tomorrow, you wouldnt be able to talk about anything else. Jonathan, can you talk about this dynamic of the president , how much this is on his mind. How intent he is at least potentially sitting down and talking to mueller and sharing his side of the story. If giuliani were to craft some kind of a deal, you get the president but x is off limits. Is giuliani worried. I havent had that from Rudy Giulianis mouth but it would be
irrational for him not to be worried about that. They all know that once you Start Talking to trump, once you get him rolling, anything can come out of his mouth. And as a reporter, some of the most effective interviewers of trump are the people who go in quite gently and throw him soft balls and get him rolling and then ask him questions. Once he gets up ahead of steam, he doesnt respect guard rails and there is not a lot of discipline in terms of no, we have discussed before, this is off limits. If he is in a room with mueller, and gets asked a question, he will take the bait. I dont know for a fact if Rudy Giuliani is not worried about that, but irrational if he is not. Bill clinton, he was so precise, so lawyerly, and so
discipline and some people say too precise. But he was ready to talk to lawyers. Something jumped out at me in that clip with Lindsey Graham. When graham says hey, is that trump asking that question, it sounds like trump and the rhetoric, that is a room full of republicans there. It sounds like trump has reached the base of his party with the message. First, i talked to lawyers who were on the clinton legal team, and the number one thing they did was to make sure that president clinton wasnt worried about the investigation. And in this case, trump is obsessed with it. To your question on whether or not this go he is to republican ace goals and whether or not this might help them in the midterm, the president is giving his base this vocabulary to
motivate. Witch hunt, words like crooked. They are out to get me. They are out to get our goals. Out to get the person you put your trust in. Republicans feel, as least the president does feel this might help them in the midterms. And when i talk to democrats out in the country, yes, they are worried about the russia investigation but worried about the economy and other things. So russia gets lost in the shuffle. So President Trump could benefit from the idea that people cant keep up with all the stories that are coming out about russia every day. And that is interesting, the back lock, about another piece of the story. Manafort and the trial that is going on right now. This is about manafort and his business dealings. Trumps name has been mentioned but not much about the campaign. When you talk to giuliani, and
to trumps folks are they keeping a close eye on that . They are keeping a close on on that, but the key question that hasnt been answered and i think the ultimate question is why did Paul Manafort join the campaign. And i spoke to people who worked on the campaign and worked with manafort and they still some of them feel like they dont know the answer to that question and have seen that he came in and worked for no money and was in extreme amounts of debt beholden to oligarchs and i steal feel like we dont know the answer to that and dont know what conversations still that he had during at that campaign. So there is a nervousness about manafort but the Michael Cohen is higher on the anxiety level. I hear Michael Cohens name far
more than Paul Manafort. And quickly, in terms of the political fallout, we have a special election with polls closing any minute now. To jonathan point, it has to be nerveracking for the president to watch rick gates turn on manafort. And testify. Idea that there is justification when they see somebody testifying about the old boss and crimes they committed together. Thanks to both of you. And up next, we are minutes away from poll closing time in ohio. This is hardball where the action is. Copd makes it hard to. So to breathe better, i go with anoro. Go your own way copd tries to say, go this way. I say, ill go my own way, with anoro. Go your own way
oncedaily anoro contains two medicines called bronchodilators that Work Together to significantly improve lung function all day and all night. Anoro is not for asthma. It contains a type of medicine that increases risk of death in people with asthma. The risk is unknown in copd. Anoro wont replace Rescue Inhalers for sudden symptoms and should not be used more than once a day. Tell your doctor if you have a heart condition, high blood pressure, glaucoma, prostate, bladder, or urinary problems. These may worsen with anoro. Call your doctor if you have worsened breathing, chest pain, mouth or tongue swelling, problems urinating, vision changes, or eye pain while taking anoro. Ask your doctor about anoro. Go your own way get your first prescription free at anoro. Com. The new united Explorer Card makes things easy. Traveling lighter. Taking a shortcut. woooo taking a breather. Rewarded learn more at theexplorercard. Com
dogfight with danny oconnor. The polls are now closed. The results will come in. We might have a few minutes delay. I am too excited maybe. But in the next two, two and a half hours, this will come into focus. If you think about to the pennsylvania district a few months ago, not really early voting. In ohio a different story and we expect the early vote that comes in and will be counted first is probably going to favor oconnor probably by a lot. If oconnor jumps out to what looks like to a massive voting, one thing to keep in mind. A Sprawling District here. Just here in these two counties a little bit of Franklin County,
columbus suburb. Delaware county, high income suburban area. At least 60 of the votes in the district are going to come out of here. A lot of rural areas, this is baldersons part of the district. Balderson was talking to people in zanesville saying we dont want someone from Franklin County. Suburb divide. Folks who werent too impressed with trump in 2016. This is the one part where Hillary Clinton won big. Complete opposite story in the rest of the district. Trump improved on mitt romney between 15 and 20th district points. We are going to get clues about the trump surge areas. We saw them in 2016. Are they surging or are they receding at all. That area that rejected trump in Franklin County. Little bit in delaware. Is there still that energy . Is there more energy on the democratic side . We dont have i was hoping as i stood here we would get numbers. We dont have any numbers yet but will start coming in very soon and we will be here. We have garrett hake. Not a lot of folks in the room yet, but to the questions you just asked, the question about excitement on the democratic side is the much easier one to answer. The excitement about danny
oconnor is real. His campaign has tried to take advantage of every little string, every door that is open. You mentioned the Franklin County gaffe. The oconnor campaign sent out Text Messages trying to make sure they were aware of it. The other question that you raised about enthusiasm for donald trump, that is really, i think the bigger question here. Does anything about Donald Trumps huge numbers in the outer parts of this District Transfer to troy balderson. He is nobodys donald trump. Having the rally here gave Donald Trumps voters an excuse to pay attention. How much of that enthusiasm for the president by his base is transferrable to this republican candidate who shares little in
common. It is fascinating and we will go to you quite a bit tonight