Coverage of national and international news, including breaking stories. America and everywhere around the world, the one that keeps people home from voting is as serious if not more serious. Yeah, i think thats exactly right. This is much broader than just about elections, as i mentioned earlier. Its broader than changing votes or anything like that. A lot of the activity that we see that is ongoing did not stop after 2016 and in some ways has actually grown. What we are seeing is a concerted effort to Pit Americans against one another, to make polarization more extreme. We are a pretty polarized country. But russia and others are taking advantage of that trying to turn us against each other in order to weaken us. One of the examples i cited this morning was actually of a fake page created by the Russian InternetResearch Agency that used an issue like the Flint Water Crisis and Police Brutality as a way to try to influence americans views on an issue like syria. So theyre basically trying to
manipulate our entire Information Ecosystem in order to weaken us. And that is as important as changing votes. Theyre both incorporate. Absolu important. Thanks for your testimony. My next guest says the architecture of facebook invites interference. The russians 2016 tactics were version 1. 0 and with look facebook may now be able to spot 1. 0style sbrerchs fainterferen early, but what about 2. 0. Joining me now is roger mcnamee, an early and current investor in facebook. Roger, youve been doing this for a long time, elevating this conversation to one that we have to understand the importance of. We certainly understand physical attacks from other countries, bombs, we understand someone hacking a system an changing a vote. We need to have greater
difficulty in how we regulate the Influence Peddling that has gone on on facebooks platform. Ali, the real problem is that as individuals we love products like facebook and instagram and youtube. As a consequence, we dont want to believe there is a dark side to them. What we also fail to recognize is that the Business Model of these companies is about monopolizing our attention. And in order to do that, they want to have stuff thats really engaging. It turns out that conspiracy theories, disinformation are a lot more engaging. They get shared virally much faster and much further than photos of puppies or babies or things that make people feel happy. Thats just how it is. Were following this fight thats going on between the Koch Brothers and trump and discuss the influence that billionaires have when they buy tv ads but your also wondering what facebook does with influence
campaigns run not by the troll farm in russia but actual organizations here in the United States. The problem here, ali, is that the russian playbook exposed the architectural flaws in products like facebook, instagram, youtube and twitter. Anybody can run that playbook. They can run 1. 0 very easily. The clever ones will figure out ways to advance their program. Theres several things we have to watch out for. One of the things that people have forgotten about is the Cambridge Analytica data set that was used so successfully by the trump campaign. That is a weapon with a symmetrical advantage, particularly when facebook provides support to people who use it. I think you have to expect that that will be put back into use aggressively in the midterms. So youre looking at Interest Groups in the United States well, maybe 20 some odd of people belong barack obama is a
kenyan born muslim. I have said i actually am a kenyan born muslim and he was never at the meetings. The fact is facebook goes narrower and narrower. These people who abuse it go narrower and narrower. If you are one of those people and share one of those views and all of a sudden you see facebook pages that validate those views, they have got you and then they can transfer your attention to other things. They start with you when youre just curious about these ideas. What happens is they encourage you to join groups of likeminded people. When youre in groups that share curiosity about an idea, the exchange of information tends to make beliefs more rigid, more inflexib inflexible, more extreme. Thats why you see people who initially they are wondering what is this ole deal with
antivax or obama and kenya. They go in just being curious, but they wind up and again, theyre on facebook at least once a day so it doesnt take very long of being inundated. When they talk about filter bubbles, this is what they talk about. Each person living in their own set of facts. Its like we have our own truman show, there are 2. 2 billion of them on facebook. Facebook complicates all this because it treats Campaign Advertising as a really important business opportunity. And so it aids campaigns. And there are ways that it does that, that create unfair advantages for candidates. They have not yet they have come out yesterday, and i thought it was really good that they came forward with those accounts that they found. The problem is, they dont have a way to stop this stuff. Not ahead of time. And theyre in the business to make it worse. Ive got to tell you, in 50 years when you look up
unintended consequences in the dictionary, facebook is going to be the answer. This is supposed to make us smarter. The exchange of information is supposed to make us better and more openminded and smarter. And there are people like Laura Rosenpeberger who are out there looking out for us. The other thing is this is about Voter Suppression. We can beat Voter Suppression if everybody gets out and votes. Thats right. You can fight all of this stuff if you actually do go to the polls. Well make sure to remind everybody when thats happening. Thanks for keeping this flame alive. Roger mcnamee is an early facebook advisor and cofounder of Elevation Partners and the center for humane technology. Breaking this afternoon, a huge scam that affected people in nearly every single state. Three ukrainians are accused of stealing the records of more than 15 million Credit Card Users at more than 3,000 businesses across the country. For more on this im joined by nbcs Justice Correspondent pete
williams. Pete, what do we know about the hackers . How did they get all of this info, and what do we do next . More than 100 companies targeted, 3600 locations in 47 states, all but alaska, hawaii and for some reason south dakota. 6,500 separate Point Of Sale terminals. 1,500 credit and debit card numbers taken. Some of those were used to make unauthorized purchases. Now, some of the targeted companies have in the past already admitted that they were targeted, although no one knew at the time where these attacks were coming from. Among the companies that were public about this, chipotle, chiles, casinos. Theyre all ukrainians. One of them was actually arrested we learned today in january in germany and brought to the u. S. To face trial, but that was kept secret while
authorities tried to grab two more and they made subsequent arrests in poland and spain. The u. S. Is trying to get them to the u. S. To face charges here as well. But they say they did this in a fairly direct way by sending these socalled phishing emails that pretend to be a request for catering services. And when an employee clicks on a word document, that launches the malicious software. Fireeye thats been monitoring this group for a while said these people showed a remarkable skill at getting people to open these emails. They would call them up and say, hey, were going to be sending you something. Or if they dont open it, they would call them back and say didnt you get our email . How come you didnt open it. So they were remarkably adept to get people to open these emails and get their malicious attacks
launched. Im not opening any more emails. Thank you, pete williams, our Justice Correspondent. President trump was in florida for a Campaign Rally last night but he forgot to bring the truth with him. It also Wasnt Waiting for him at the white house either. New analysis from the Washington Post details all the false and misleading claims that the president has made since taking office. Their frequency is increasing. Youre watching msnbc. Know what . No, what . I just switched to geico and got more. More . Got a company i can trust. Thats a heck of a lot more. Over 75 years of great savings and service. You cant argue with more. Why would ya . Geico. Expect great savings and a whole lot more. Booking a flight doesnt have to be expensive. Just go to priceline. Its the best place to book a flight a few days before my trip and still save up to 40 . Just tap and go. For the best savings on flights, go to priceline. Women of i. C. E. Are liberating communities and towns from savage gangs like ms13 that are occupying our country, like another nation would. Weve already started the wall. Weve got 1. 6 billion and weve started large portions of the wall. And if you go out and you want to buy groceries, you need a picture on a card. You need i. D. You need i. D. To buy groceries . Thats a mere sampling of the many lies that President Trump made last night during his rally in florida. It looks like hes making these claims more often than he used to. According to the Washington Post donald trump has made more than 4,200 such claims since he took office. Thats an average of eight false claims a day. In june and july he told an average of 16 lies a day. Joining me now, glenn kessler
who keeps track of the president s false and misleading talk. Glenn, all journalists to some degree are Fact Checkers, but for many of us it was sort of a side piece of our job. All of a sudden, this has become the majority of all our work and you are the most exalted of journalists in the fulltime job. This guy is keeping you paid. Yes, yes. Its quite a lot of work to d p deep keep up that database. What does he mostly say . He seems to be very, very concentrated on collusion, on the stock market, which he says has ticked up 8 trillion in value. The biggest tax cut in american history, which i prove is false on a fairly regular basis, and the plants moving back to michigan in big numbers. Is there no consequence to the fact that he just says this stuff . You guys check him, we check him. Whats it all for . Well, we do it so that people are better informed and they can do with the information as they wish. I do think his supporters, they hear this and they believe it. So hes the interesting thing about President Trump is he really only talks to his supporters. He doesnt really particularly try to reach out to people who didnt support him. And so within that narrow audience, as you can see at the rally last night, they love these lines, even if they might realize that some of them you dont believe in Climate Change or you believe the media is always lying to you, there are a bunch of them. Once you identify with someone who validates some of your views, youre more likely to believe other things they say even if its verifiable that its false. Right. And i think that was part of the secret sauce for donald trump during the election. He said things that were not true and that most politicians would never say, but they were things that his supporters already believed. So, for instance, when he said there were millions of Illegal Immigrants flooding over the border, which is not true and migration from mexico has been going down in the last decade, his supporters will hear that and say finally theres a politician whos telling me the truth because its something they already believed. Right. Hes talking about gang groups occupying american cities. Please tweet me in a city thats being occupied by a gang. Does it mean anything more that we are Fact Checkers . Yes, i do think it means
something. You know, i think the president undermines his credibility when he routinely does not tell the truth about basic factual matters. And i think that is reflected in the approval ratings. Ordinarily you would think that a president with an economy such as this right. Would have a pretty lofty approval rating. Hes still under water and part of that is politics. As i said, he doesnt really reach out to people who didnt vote for him. But i think he also undermines his credibility when he says things that simply arent true. Glenn, thanks for the work that you and your team do on behalf of journalists everywhere, keeping people honest. By the way, generally speaking, you dont need an i. D. To buy groceries in america unless youre buying something that i dont know youre buying. Coming up, President Trump has a message for Attorney GeneralJeff Sessions and the justice department, shut down the russia investigation. How his latest tweet could be
another piece of the obstruction puzzle. Youre watching msnbc. How do you win at business . Stay at laquinta. Where were changing with contemporary makeovers. Then, use the ultimate power handshake, the upper hander with a double palm grab. Who has the upper hand now . Start winning today. Book now at lq. Com. Weve doubled our efforts. I grew up in the forests out in this area and honestly its heartbreaking to see all these trees dying. What guides me is ensuring that the public is going to be safer and that these forests can be sustained and enjoyed by the community in the future. Well, its a first for the president , at least publicly, telling the Attorney General in a tweet to stop Robert Muellers investigation immediately. As many of you probably already know, Jeff Sessions cant actually fire mueller, something several republican lawmakers were quick to remind the president. Well, the president us entitled to speak his mind. I just think as a practical matter its not possible. I dont Think General Sessions can fire mr. Mueller, i think hes recused. Should the president be sending these tweets out . Youve got to ask the president. Rudy giuliani tells nbc news that, quote, the president was expressing his opinion and no president ial order was issued or will be. The question, does this qualify as an attempt to obstruct justice . A lot of people think it does. Nbc legal analyst Danny Cevallos says not so fast. Im a defense attorney, so forgive me, but i just think that a prosecutor would really hesitate before thinking this is an indictable crime of obstruction or really an impeachable crime. First we give the highest level of First Amendment protection to politicaltype speech. Got it. And the fact that sessions could actually fire or end the investigation does go towards trumps i would say lack of ability to obstruct in this case. Were really on new ground. The notion of a president obstructing justice, the same justice that he heads as head of the Executive Branch is something weve never really dealt with before. We can talk about whether it fits into the definition of obstruction and i think reasonable minds can differ. Where the difference is, is where an actual prosecutor has to say, hmm, is this a crime that i think i can get an indictment on or, if youre a congressperson and you think could i actually impeach and convict based on this definition of obstruction. So if i were mueller and i were using this as part of a much larger case, is it better for trump that he says this kind of stuff all the time, this is crazy stuff that gets walked back by the administration, by himself hours later all the time, or does it work in muellers favor who says, see,
hes been going at this forever. He keeps telling everybody it should end and may even tell the Attorney General whos it better for or worse for. Its better for mueller and heres why. Yes, its true that this Trump Tweeting has changed the dialogue and were sort of immune to the chaos now. The one thing that remains constant is the crimes code. And prosecutors looking at the crimes code will fit that kind of conduct into whatever the crimes code says it is. Whatever those elements are. So no matter how much our Immune System has built up over trumps tweets and statements, the prosecutors are business as usual. And if thats part of a piece of the puzzle in the overall picture of whats been going on the and it fits into criminal conduct, it wont hold back the prosecutor. Protesters are outside the office of john thune waiting for his meeting with nominee brett kavanaugh. Theyre all wearing shirts saying be a hero and have their fists raised in silent protest. The Trump Administration is once again going after obamacare. Today it announced a rule change for cheap shortterm health care plans. Youre probably thinking whats the problem with that . Well, these plans are aimed at Healthy People and offer very minimal coverage for low premiums. They can turn ay people with preexisting conditions. The shortterm coverage is already in place under obamacare but the way it worked is that you could only get it f thr months at a time. Now you can use this short can extend it for ng as a another two y give you three years. Unr obam it wanted to limit Healthy People from being on the cheaper option, forcing people to buy better