A report he is worried about son don jr. And that Infamous Trump tower meeting. Backlash continuing over the president s targeting of lebron james. The latest example of what appears to be trumps war against black athletes. Plus, im going to talk to a potentially Ground Breaking congressional candidate in michigan hoping to be the latest democrat to show that going left is the key to victory for democrats in 2018. All of that straight ahead. We begin with the russia investigation. A tale of father and son. Its been more than two years since the Trump Tower Meeting and it still a major source of concern on the part of the president and his legal team. To date president admitting any tweet that the meeting was in fact about getting dirt on hillary clinton. Thats a correct contradiction to the statement we now know was dictated by trump himself when the meeting first game public
claiming if you may recall that was actually about adoption. But its not the first time that president has tried to down play the importance of that meeting. Take a listen. I do think this. I think from a practical stand point, most people would have taken that meeting. Its called Opposition Research. Its very standard. They have information and you take the information. All right. So we want to break down several important parts of this story today. The president s tweet comes after a report that hes becoming increasingly concerned about his sons legal jeopardy. So how much potential trouble could don jr. Be in . The president continues to claim he did not know about the meeting while arguing the meeting itself is no big deal. So why the need to distance himself from it . How does all this play into a potential trump interview with bob mueller . For all of that, im joined by
former u. S. Attorney and msnbc contributor barbara mcquaid, former cia officer david price and Msnbc National Security and justice reporter julia ainsley. Great to have you with us. Lets start with the Trump Tower Meeting. The president s lawyers had this to say. You have to look at the totality. When you look at a meeting, george, that took place in a year before the now two years ago, the question is what law statute or rule or regulation has been violated . Nobody pointed to one. Robert, help us answer jays question there. What law was potentially violated by this meeting which the president now admits was in fact to get dirt on his opponent . I can point to one. There is a Campaign Finance law that says can you not accept or solicit thang solicit a thing of value from a Foreign National with relation to an election. We want americans to decide who becomes Office Holders in
america and not foreigners who can have foreign influence. So that is one very easy crime that could be violated as a result of that. I also think that this tweet suggests an Obstruction Of Justice. With he have people trying to tell one thing happened when in fact another did. Standing in isolation, the false statements about this may not be a crime. I think they tend to show the corrupt insent that could be important in an Obstruction Of Justice case. Substantive Campaign Violation and maybe larger conspiracy. So let me pick up on a point about this tweet as well, barbara. The president s tweet makes it clear that the Trump Tower Meeting is and certainly has been on his mind. It concerns him. How do you think that it impacts any decision that he may want to make about sitting down with Robert Mueller when he tweets out what he has tweeted out earlier today . Yeah, its interesting. In light of the negotiations that are going on there, when you tweet, youre clearly talking to the masses. Owe can certainly have conversations with his lawyers and Robert Mueller. He is trying to down play it. I think two things about that. One is shifting stories is something that prosecutors are always very keenly interested in. Because it suggests a consciousness of guilt you want to get to the bottom of. It makes Robert Mueller eager to talk to him. It suggests he has no intention of talking to Robert Mueller. This is for the masses. This is for political purposes. I think hell slow walk the negotiations until he gets a point thats so close to the mid terms that he feels like Robert Mueller is not going to push him with a subpoena or some sort of litigation to get him to sit down. Theres been interesting speculation this week that the president has been trying to shift a little bit of his strategy when it comes to saying things that, like, oh, you know, collusion is not a crime. Yeah, we were getting help from a lot of people. We didnt break any laws. Here is Kellyanne Conway this morning. When you talk about the hoax, he is talking about this fantasy, this unproven fantasy
is there a way or how do we know whether thats actually true . Is there any way for us to verify that that meeting was of no substance since its only the word of donald trump jr. Who is down played it . I mean from our perspective here, its very hard to verify that. But he can be sure that is something that Robert Mueller is still looking into. And even if he is found that nothing of substance came out of it, that isnt really a whole hearted defense. A, there is always the Obstruction Probe. The very statement that was made on Air Force One last year when this story came out could be used in an Obstruction Probe about the president for lying about that. Obviously its a lie as we see today where he is talking about there was dirt they were trying to offer and that is the reason why they met with them in the first place. Also just wanted to go back to a point that barbara made. It is the attempt to accept or solicit this. Just the very emails exchanged with donald trump jr. In setting this up. He said, gosh, if it is dirt on hillary clinton, i would love to hear it. Ayman Mohyeldin hosts coverage of national and international news, including breaking stories. Guys, thank you so much for all your insights. Thank you. Up next, trump versus lebron. A twitter attack on the nba superstar sparks a Quick Reaction from the president. Plus, a global showdown. Irans president preparing to address his nation on the eve of u. S. Sanctions being imposed in the wake of trumps tearing up of the iran nuclear deal. Stay with us. Ive been Making Blades here at gillette for 20 years. Theres a lot of innovation that goes into making americas 1 shave. Rodney mastermind of discounts like safe driver, paperless. The list goes on. How about a discount for long lists . Gold. Mara, you save our customers hundreds for switching almost effortlessly. Its a gift. And jamie. Present. Together we are unstoppable. So, what are we gonna do . Insurance. Thats kind of what we do here. All right. So President Trump may be on vacation this week. He got no shortage of International Hot spots to deal with. Theyre blaming u. S. Residents among others for a suspected assassination attempt. Incredible footage coming out of that country during that parade there in north korea. More signs of strain. The countrys Foreign Minister publicly admonishing the u. S. For insisting sanctions stay in place against the country. In The Middle East, rhinian protesters taking to the streets to rally against the collapse of irans currency as president prepares to address the nation. All of this as the white house reportedly staffed up to unveil the long promised and long awaited middle east peace plan. Joining me now ambassador Wendy Sherman for the Obama Administration and david kirk
pack tri kirkpatrick. Great to have both of you with us. Ambassador sherman, let me begin with you. The Associated Press is reporting that Trump Administration is asking for volunteers from other agencies to help work on the socalled middle east peace plan. Why is this plan so missteerous as to the contents an why so many delays two years into it . Those are excellent questions that i dont know the answers to. I think what the Trump Administration has found out is that this is a lot more difficult, that they thought coming in. You may recall President Trump said during the campaign this is the easiest deal to do. The right person is not able to do it. I think when Jared Kushner and mr. Greenblatt got involved in this, they had a lot of conversations. But the plan isnt so easy. If its done right, it brings costs for all sides in this particular situation. So i think they have a timing issue. No time will be good. Perhaps they give democrats an advantage. The Prime Minister of israel is facing some contentious tensions within his own country. So should they wait for any electoral possibilities in israel . So what i think theyre trying to do is get ready which is a good idea. Because theres a lot of implementation that will have to go forward and a lot of diplomacy if there is real substance here and none of us know the answer to that either. David, it seems that president has had some mixed messages about iran to say at least he certainly had twitter war of sorts with the iranian government after threatening them. He came out and said he is willing to talk with them. On saturday he tweeted thut irans economy is struggling as protesters are lining the streets across iran and said its up to iran to agree to meet with him. I know you spent a lot of time in The Middle East. Is it likely you see a scenario that he meets President Trump given the propensity with countries like saudi arabia and egypt . I think that is high unlikely in part because the reimpositions of sanctions from the u. S. Alone has nowhere near the bite that the multilateral sanctions, the Obama Administration have put in place previously. I mean you have to remember, iran got its own problems. It has a Banking Industry problem, economic problems abscent the sanctions. And so in some ways its probably a little bit of a relief for the Iranian Regime to be able to blame trump and his sanctions for the economic problems of their own people. To that point that david brought up, when you take a step back and look at the tension that weve had with our european allies on issues of trade, on nato, on broader big picture Foreign Policy stuff, there is no insentive for european allies to go along with this administrations desire to snap
back sanctions against the iranian government. Is it likely theyll have impact . The sanctions imposed tomorrow are fairly small in the scheme of things. The big ones, yeah, are yet to come in november. Those are the Oil Sanctions and financial transaction sanctions. The sanctions imposed tomorrow does send a signal that the president is serious about reimposing the sanctions. That anybody looking for waivers or changes arent likely to get them. And quite frankly, most of the large companies, whether thats Alliance Or Total or siemens, bog airbus that had possibilities of creating planes for iran, all of them have already pulled out of iran. What europe is trying to do is hold on to small and medium
companies. What jeff said is correct. There say lot going on here. There is a lot of holes in the Sanctions Enforcement around the world but it will be very hard to keep the joint Comprehensive Plan Of Action in place and i agree there are internal problems in iran. Zwroust day they released rules on currency exchanges, trying to stop the fall of the real iranian currency. I think the Speech Tonight Calls for resistance. And really pretty nationalistic speech as was just suggested mr. Mr. Kirkpatrick. Really rallying the country together against the United States. So not good. Put this in context. The big picture of the region. Do you see a strategy on the part of the Trump Administration visavis The Middle East . We talked about The Middle East peace plan. You have the iran piece of the puzzle. But then you also have the gulf, the Persian Arab Gulf Countries as well. Put that in context for what is
actually happening now on the ground in the region there . I dont know if you call it a strategy. But what we see clearly in all the cases is the Trump Administration is betting on the gulf. Theyre putting all their eggs in with the saudis and that means turning against iran full force. And it also means that betting on them to pull through this Peace Process. I mean as you are probably aware, the funny thing about this Peace Process is theyre talking to everybody but the palestinians. They seem to think that they have the gulf onboard and gulf money onboard, they can somehow pressure the palestinians or bribe the palestinians to come in to the table. There is a lot skepticism about what that looks like. It is a highly controversial
decision. Great to have you both with us this sunday afternoon. Thank you guys. Thank you. All right. So one more note on iran. You may appreciate this if youre on twitter. Former iranian president trolling President Trump with this tweet. Writing in english and making it clear that hes actually on team lebron in the battle between the president and the nba star. Still ahead, why President Trump seems to be especially quick to single out black athletes for criticism. Fact is, every Insurance Company hopes you drive safely. But allstate actually helps you drive safely. With drivewise. It lets you know when you go too fast. And brake too hard. With feedback to help you drive safer. Giving you the power to actually lower your cost. Unfortunately, it cant do anything about that. Now that you know the truth. Are you in good hands . Im ray and i quit smoking with chantix. I tried cold turkey, i tried the patch. They didnt work for me. I didnt think anything was going to work for me until i tried chantix. Chantix, along with support, helps you quit smoking. Chantix reduced my urge to smoke. I needed that to quit. When you try to quit smoking, with or without chantix, you may have nicotine withdrawal symptoms. Some people had changes in behavior or thinking, aggression, hostility, agitation, depressed mood, or suicidal thoughts or actions with chantix. Serious side effects may include seizures, new or worse heart or blood vessel problems, sleepwalking or allergic and skin reactions which can be lifethreatening. Stop chantix and get help right away if you have any of these. Tell your Healthcare Provider if youve had depression or other Mental Health problems. Decrease alcohol use while taking chantix. Use caution when driving or operating machinery. The most common side effect is nausea. I cant tell you how good it feels to have smoking behind me. Talk to your doctor about chantix. To have smoking behind me. We really pride ourselves on temaking it easy for youass, to get your windshield fixed. Teacher lets turn in your science papers. Tech vo this teacher always puts her students first. Student i did mine on volcanoes. Teacher you did . oh, i cant wait to read it. Tech vo so when she had auto glass damage. She chose safelite. With safelite, she could see exactly when wed be there. Teacher you must be pascal. Tech yes maam. Tech vo saving her time. [honk, honk] kids bye tech vo . So she can save the science project. Kids whoa kids vo safelite repair, safelite replace
them. And two months before that trump lashed out at steph curry by withdrawing his white house invitation to celebrate the Golden State Warriors and their nba title. But the first black athlete to be attacked by trump, of course, you may recall is colin kaepernick. Not only has he repeatedly criticized him for kick starting the protest. But when he was not picked up by any nfl team, trump taunted him saying the quarterback was fired and advised him to find Something Else to do. Joining me now to discuss this, dylan scott. We have two contributors from the hill, republican consultant sir Michael Singleton and Johns Hopkins professor wendy asofo. Wendy, let me begin with you. Trump was reacting to this lebron james interview. Take a listen. What i notice over the last few months that hes kind of using sport to kind of divide us and thats something that i cant relate to. I know sport is the first time i was