2:00 p.m. in washington where today the president's lawyers are scrambling to clarify his tweets. it is unusual since the president's lawyers don't respond so quickly to clarify anything, he says, which makes you wonder if the tweet in question got them worried. in a series of official presidential statements, remember the white house has called his tweets official statements, trump called the russia probe a disgrace to the usa and seemed to demand his attorney general put an end to it. quote, attorney general jeff sessions should stop this rigged witch hunt right now before it continues to stain our country any further. as reported in "the new york times" last week, special counsel rocky mountain is keepi m /* rob -- robert mueller is keeping an eye on the president's twitter. no, say the president's lawyers. Katy Tur hosts coverage of national and international news, including breaking stories. clinton campaign, and the indictment of 13 russians and three entities who allegedly used a sophisticated network of social media accounts to sew discourse among american voters. and timing matters. as the president was tweeting today, the first defendant indicted by robert mueller to face trial was sitting in a virginia courtroom. donald trump's former campaign chairman paul manafort. quote, as the president said today, who was treated worse? who was treated worse? "alfonse" capone legendary mob boss, killer and public enemy number one, or paul manafort? he worked for me for a very short time and these old charges have nothing to do with collusion. a hoax. so the big question we are asking today, is trump's tweets calling on sessions to end the russia probe evidence of obstruction of justice. joining me nbc news chief white here is one of those exchanges. >> is rudy giuliani the one giving the president legal advice on his tweets? and does that statement reflect the opinion of the president's legal team? >> look, the president is not obstructing. he is fighting back. the president is stating his opinion. he is stating it clearly and he is certainly expressing the frustration that he has with the level of corruption that we've seen from people like jim comey, peter strzok, andrew mccabe. there is a reason that the president is angry and most of america is angry as well as there is no reason he shouldn't be able to voice that opinion. >> the answer to that question does trigger another question, which is who is the president fighting back against? is it his own department of justice? robert mueller conducting this lawful investigation. one that is resulting in paul manafort, as we speak right now across the river, across the potomac, sitting in a courtroom in alexandria, virginia, in a trial because of what special other ex ortations that are taken as a show that it should be shut down. but you just look at this statement in isolation. it reads, it quacks, it walks like a command. it's a command. >> there are a couple other tweets that we're told could be problematic for donald trump. they are a couple of old tweets. there is one from december 2nd, 2017. i had to fire general flynn because he lied to the vice president and the fbi. he has pled guilty to those lies. it is a shame because his actions during the transition were lawful. there was nothing to hide. interesting those actions were lawful. there was nothing to hide. another tweet. this is april 2018. trump appears to have knowledge that the actions some have construed as potential obstruction of justice are examples of fighting back. doing things that nobody thought possible despite the never ending and corrupt russia investigation, which takes tremendous time and focus, no collusion or obstruction, parentheses, other than i fight back. so now they do the unthinkable and raid a lawyer's office for information, exclamation point. bad in capital letters. harry litman, when you take these tweets together, what is a prosecutor going to do? how are they going to argue it? will we see robert mueller arguing obstruction of justice with this or more? is it enough just to have these tweets? >> i think it probably is for the comey piece. the first one you read, katy, has become quite important in the last couple of days because new reporting has shown that trump knew at the time that flynn was under investigation by the fbi. so that's a mendacious tweet. when he tells comey can you let it go, we know he is saying to let go an active fbi investigation. likewise, the whole sort of tweet storm, these are going to be admissible, and they will all it was not known to the fbi -- >> but to say that the investigation was based wholly off of it is misleading. >> that's not true. it was part of the mix, but it was not the immediate trigger for the investigation. >> and then, michael, you have been steeped in this, trump's relationship with russia, what is going on there? you wrote a book, "russian roulette" about it. what is he worried about? what we have seen in the past couple of days, over the weekend through today, is an escalation of tweets, angry and seemingly frustrated tweets by the president really honing in or homing in on robert mueller in a way that he wasn't doing a few months ago. this is relatively new. >> well, look, there has been an expectation for some time that mueller is wrapping up the obstruction part of his investigation in the form of a report. if he is getting close on that, and there is reason to think he is, that could be something that his lawyers know about and has been communicate today the president and could help explain the new tweet storm this morning. there is a common consensus that mueller likely is not going to do anything after labor day. he does not want to be accused of interfering in the congressional election in the same way that james comey interfered in the presidential election with his last-minute letter. so if he is going to do something on the obstruction front, it is reasonable to think that it may be coming in the next few weeks, and that could be the trigger for what the president was tweet being this morning. >> really interesting. >> there is also the manafort trial, of course. >> of course. the manafort trial. his old campaign chairman. he had nothing to do with it, he was only there for a short time -- i am being sarcastic -- is the first to face trial in the russia investigation. thank you very much. and all of this is happening today, a day after we learned about an ongoing sha shadow campaign on social media to influence american politics. sound familiar? it's happening again. nbc news can report that facebook's report on the covert campaign excluded some of the most divisive rhetoric. they removed pages that sought to divide voters along racial and ethnic lines. sound familiar? even as the president and the white house has -- even as the white house has praised facebook for the quick action, it is unwilling to identify the country behind the targeted attacks. but former intel chiefs say they have no doubt that it was russia. >> i have no doubt that the russians are behind the effort. the similarities in patterns here and some of the techniques, the fact that one of the administrators in these new accounts was an administrator on the season accounts i think is all the evidence we need it say it was the russians. >> this was identical to russia's behavior in the run up to the 2016 election where their first objective was to sow discord, discontent and doubt about the truth. they are at it again. >> joining me is msnbc news reporter ben collins and justice reporter julia ainsley. ben, you co-authored that exclusive. tell us more about what you found. >> what we found is that facebook released a press release yesterday saying we found new accounts that may have been tied to this agency, but the one specific thing they didn't mention is how bad the stuff could get, right? they mentioned that there was no event, that people were counter-protesting neo-nazis. it said bring goggles, expect the worst. bring helmets, expect the worst. >> it's almost inciting violence? >> exactly. >> or seeking to foster the environment where you think it's going to be violent? >> yes. they had an abolish i.c.e. protest that started off not that bad. over time it said take over i.c.e. headquarters. that's what the event was changed to after about a few days on the surface. now, facebook didn't release any of that stuff. they released some memes, some -- as ycan see on the screen, standard political rhetoric. it's more divisive than that. there is more to it than that. this is what the russians do. they put up no one is going to start joining facebook groups talking about taking over i.c.e. headquarters and doing violent stuff. they start -- >> they start with something innocuous? >> exactly, something you want to agree with. >> yeah, and they push it in that direction. this happened in 2016 as well? >> same exact thing. they found this it seems like because one of the page administrators was bone of the same fake accounts from 2016. >> julia, facebook flagged this this morning. there was a hearing on capitol hill. what else is being done in order to protect the american public against this sort of rhetoric? not the rhetoric necessarily, but the intent to divide by a foreign country it likes? >> that's a good question, katy. in some respects we kind of have a divided administration on this issue. as we know, a couple of weeks ago the president said there was no continuing threat from russia to target the united states. of course, he got immediately blow back from his homeland security secretary and other people who disagreed and said it would be foolish to think russia was not still planning these same kinds of attacks. another thing that occurred days after trump's remarks was deputy attorney general rod rosenstein saying that the justice department was going to adopt a new policy of starting to call out these bad actors. if they believed there had been an influence campaign carried out by a foreign government, they wanted to alert the public to that just like they would a breach of your credit card. it fell to the private seccer. this was something that facebook flagged. they took down 32 pages. this didn't come from our own intelligence coming in there and saying we think these pages are problematic. >> and you cover national security. is anybody out there, at least in private, asking where the president is on this? why isn't he leading this? >> they are not. i think they asked that question for a long time and got no answer. i do think that they are in some respects feeling a little bit reassured by the justice department just for how much they have come out, how much secretary neilson came out yesterday saying that russia was still a threat in this case, in this arena. so they feel that at least in their intel community and the justice department they have sohen they want to go after these bad actors. that doesn't go all the way up to the man up top. >> guys, thank you very much. and coming up, will prosecutors in the paul manafort trial call their star witness? what we know about rick gates taking the stand coming up. and later this hour, emmy award winner rob ryaner is here to talk about trump and the president's tattered relationship with, you guessed it, the truth. we've got aging roadways, aging power grids, ...aging everything. we also have the age-old problem of bias in the workplace. really... never heard of it. the question is... who's going to fix all of this? 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(wienermobile horn) as the federal trial of former trump campaign chairman paul manafort sbergs tenters th day, the president is seeking to distance himself. he tweeted paul manafort worked for ronald reagan, bob dole and highly prominent and respected political leaders. he worked for me for a very short time. why didn't government tell me he was under investigation? these old charges have nothing to do with collusion. a hoax. this week the president and his lawyers have repeatedly insisted that collusion is not a crime, and it's true that the manafort case is not about collusion, although it's much more complicated when you talk about whether collusion is a crime. it's more likely called conspiracy. anyway, it's also true that a conviction could make it easier for prosecutors to get manafort to tell them whether he knows anything about possible collusion or conspiracy or coordination between the trump campaign and the russians. that is, unless paul manafort is counting on a pardon from his former boss. manafort, who has pleaded not guilty, is facing 18 counts of tax evasion and money-laundering. he is facing separate charges in d.c. if convicted, he could spend the rest of his life in prison. nbc's national security reporter and intelligence reporter kendell lanian is outside the courthouse. and danny cevallos is an msnbc news legal analyst. i'm skipping words around, guys. i don't know why. guys, so let me first play for you what peter alexander asked sarah huckabee sanders about the president's tweets claiming that this is all fair for paul manafort and whether or not that means the president believes he is innocent. listen. >> the president believe that paul manafort is innocent of the charges he faces? >> i don't believe that that's the president's role to play. he believes he is being treated unfairly. beyond that, i can't say. >> so, danny, what do you think of the president tweeting about paul manafort and then trying to claim it's unfair but he also could be guilty? >> it's fascinating because on the one hand he is the executive -- he is the embodiment of the executive branch. the same executive branch that is prosecuting paul manafort, and there is a history of presidents commenting on criminal trials. go way back to the charles manson trial and an uproar was caused when president nixon suggested that he believed that charles manson was guilty. it almost caused a mistrial. now you have the president essentially saying that he thinks paul manafort is being treated unfairly, which is really just code for he shouldn't be prosecuted at all, which is that a forecast to a pardon? nobody can know for sure. is that what manafort is holding out for? that may be the only thing he is holding out for at this point because by this time mueller may have all the information he wants and there is nothing manafort could possibly offer that's worth a cooperation agreement. >> ken, give us the latest about what you saw in the courtroom today and what so far the prosecutors are using for their arguments. what evidence are they using, and how are they trying to paint paul manafort? >> sure, katy. look, what's happening in the courtroom is completely divorced from this whole political debate. there is no mention of collusion. there is no mention of russia. there is no mention of donald trump. the jury was not even told that these prosecutors are working for the special counsel robert mueller. today we have deep into the world's of men's fashion, believe it or not, because the prosecution is trying to show that paul manafort used ill gotten gains to purchase really expensive men's suits from the house of bijon, an elite beverly hills suit maker, where you can spend $25,000 on a custom suit. an fbi agent testified that his closet was full of these suits. the prosecution tried to introduce a photo. the judge has been skeptical, is sort of warning the prosecution that manafort is not on trial for being rich and spending lavishly. but the prosecution is painting a picture of a man who is so greedy that he needed -- even though he was being paid $60 million by this ukrainian politician, he needed to evade taxes to fund his lavish li lifestyle. they say they moved the money through offshore counts, he committed bank fraud and tax fraud. this afternoon we have more witnesses actually associated with one of his tailors and a mercedes-benz dealer. they are trying to paint a picture for the jury of a man living lavishing on ill gotten gains. >> rick gates always presumed to be the star witness in this trial, he was another person indicted but he turned. he pleaded guilty in exchange for cooperation with robert mueller. word now that he may not testify against manafort? >> it's hard to know what to make of this, katy. the prosecutor said at one point in response to a question from the judge gates may or may not testify. he clarified i am not making a statement. i am saying we are constantly re-evaluating our witness list. what may be going on is, look, the prosecution was prepared to make this case without rick gates. they indicted rick gates along with paul manafort in a massive and detailed indictment and then rick gates turned evidence and decided to cooperate and it was convenient for the prosecution to use him as a witness because he is, after all, paul manafort's right-hand man. he is speak to these transactions, this conduct. the defense said we're blaming everything on gates. if there were crimes here, if there was tax evasion, it was investigates' fault. he kept the books and he is a liar and he em buzzlbezzled fro company. the prosecution may be considering whether they want to bring gates and subject to him to a withering prosecution. >> that's clever by the prosecution. the risk is that can the prosecution authenticate all of this evidence without gates? he was the guy that was there. he's going to be the one that can hold up a lot of these documents and say this is a document, i recognize it, and get it into evidence. if the government can get all of this evidence in without gates and they don't need him to sit on that stand and point out manafort in court and say, that's the guy, that's the guy, then, you know, they are taking a risk, but they may not need him. >> gentlemen, thank you very much. and as recently as march, president trump was boasting about his support among female voters. >> women. women, we love you. we love you. hey, didn't we surprise them with women during the election? remember? women won't like donald trump. i said, have i really had that kind of a problem? i don't think so. >> the problem is what he said was not entirely correct. he would have been correct had he specified that women voters were white women, the ones that voted for him. they went for trump over hillary clinton in 2016 by a vote of 52%. are all of them still with him? in a recent interview with "vanity fair," former white house chief strategist steve bannon made a prediction. the republican college educated woman is done. trump triggers them. new numbers from "the washington post" and abc news suggest bannon was right. the data shows support for republicans among white college-educated women is dropping off a cliff. and they are turning to democrats. joining me now phil bump, national correspondent for "the washington post" and shanny petty piece, white house correspondent for bloomberg news. phil, i thought this article was intriguing. for some the enduring mystery of 2016 was why white women voted for him in such large numbers, especially after the "access hollywood" tape and the way he treated women and all of the women that came out to accuse him of harassment or groping or worse, which he denied, i should point out. so if they voted for him in 2016, what has changed so much to make their support fall off a cliff? didn't they know who they were voting for? tell me what you think? >> i think there are two things here. the first is that the 2016 choice was between two particular people. it was tweebt donald trump and hillary clinton. hillary clinton was very, very unpopular, particular among republicans. donald trump against a democrat as the polls are, the generic ballot, probably trump would have fared worse. people would have been able to back someone more popular than hillary clinton. also partisanship. one of the things we saw the last couple of weeks of the 2016 campaign was republicans who had about iffy on trump, they gave him a shot. over the course of the campaign and despite concrete efforts from hillary clinton to woo the republicans, they still came them to him. what we have seen since then, the remarkable thing, if you look how non-college-educated men have gone, they have gone more republican. that is at the 2016 mark. it is essentially from 2016 on, white college-educated women became more heavily democratic than they had been prior. >> i notice in all of your charts it seems that support for donald trump among college-educated women is down. support among white college-educated men seems to be going down as well. support among men without a college degree seems to have a little dip. these are obviously moments and they could skyrocket in your next chart, but did something happen recently that would trigger this sort of drop? >> it's hard to say. these polls -- this is three or four polls over the course of the last foo-few -- few years. it's a specific set of polls. you know, we shouldn't read into this broad theme beyond -- >> beyond the white women falling off a cliff, as you said in your article. shannon, the white house, what are they doing about this? bannon is going around saying you can't count on white women. it helped in philadelphia. that was a swing state that helped him get into the oval office. is the white house concerned about this? are they planning on making any adjustments with the president? >> i did talk to a couple of the sort of president's allies and advisors about a poll last week that showed that the majority of suburban women strongly disapprove of his performance and rising to the point that these are likely these white women who he was able to carry. you know, i get always this push back of, well, it's early, there is a lot that can happen. a couple of points that were raised to me is that, yes, maybe they are losing white college-educated republican women who the party feels like they have been -- there has been an erosion for a while. if they can make up for that among white men or other groups like african-americans, a number of sort of trump campaign allies have told me there is a target and focus going to 2020 to try and -- >> hold on. hold on, shannon. go back to that rally from last night. director, if you can hear me, go back to these images. let's scan the crowd. somebody show me a person who is not white. hopefully, the camera will pan around. i feel like donald trump yelling at the camera. show me a face that isn't white. how are they planning to get enough african-american voters to offset the white college women? >> their argument is the economy. in every one of these rallies, president trump raises the unemployment rate among african-americans and advances that he is saying improvements are being made in inner cities and the economy is there. however, that assumes that people's motives for voting for someone is purely their pocketbook and nothing to do with degrading who they are as humans like in the charlottesville incident. within trump world i continue to hear people float this idea of increasing african-american support. >> i saw one, i think, person of color in that crowd, in that shot. of course, it's not the entire crowd. as somebody who has been to a lot of trump rallies, the vast majority of people are white. thank you very much. and a last-minute court order kept 3d gun blueprints from going online over night. captain mark kelly, husband of congressman gabby giffords, joins me next. i was just finishing a ride. i felt this awful pain in my chest. i had a pe blood clot in my lung. i was scared. i had a dvt blood clot. having one really puts you in danger of having another. my doctor and i chose xarelto®. xarelto®. to help keep me protected. xarelto® is a latest-generation blood thinner that's... proven to treat and reduce the risk of dvt or pe blood clots from happening again. in clinical studies, almost 98% of patients on xarelto® did not experience another dvt or pe. xarelto® works differently. warfarin interferes with at least 6 of your body's natural blood-clotting factors. xarelto® is selective, targeting just one critical factor. don't stop taking xarelto® without talking to your doctor, as this may increase risk of blood clots. while taking, you may bruise more easily, or take longer for bleeding to stop. xarelto® can cause serious, and in rare cases, fatal bleeding. it may increase your risk of bleeding if you take certain medicines. get help right away for unexpected bleeding or unusual bruising. do not take xarelto® if you have an artificial heart valve or abnormal bleeding. before starting, tell your doctor about all planned medical or dental procedures and any kidney or liver problems. learn all you can... to help protect yourself from another dvt or pe. talk to your doctor about xarelto®. there's also a lot to know. part a that's your hospital coverage, part b is all the doctor stuff... the most important thing to know? 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>> well, i don't agree that they were winning the court battle. there is really no strong -- >> they have settled, so they have essentially won that first part of it. >> they've won, but if they did not settle, there wasn't a strong indication that they would have lost in court. so they settled the case. we really don't know why they settled it. they should not have settled it. this is not a first amendment issue. this is computer code. it's not the right for somebody to express an opinion. and there is precedent for this, katy. you know, we don't put the plans for nuclear weapons or sophisticated weapons systems or -- my previous background as an astronaut, we are careful about what information we put online with regards to space technology. so this isn't just this one issue, but mr. wilson tried to use the first amendment to support his agenda of guns everywhere. and these are undetectable and untraceable firearms, which is not in the best interest of public safety. >> so there is a hold on this. they didn't all go online this morning, as initially was supposed to happen. are you confident that this is something that, if the courts can't stop it, that congress can do something to fix it? >> well, congress certainly can do something to fix it. senator bill nelson of florida has a bill in place that will address this. it will make it illegal to put these plans online, and also, i mean, currently under existing law, having untraceable and undetected firearms are illegal. so congress can deal with this. the president certainly could deal with this. he could direct his secretary of state to reverse the decision that they made the other day. i think that's within the realm of possibility. the interesting thing about this though is what happened yesterday morning when the president first spoke about this. his first inclination on this issue was to go to the national rifle association. i think that's pretty interesting. >>yeah. >> not to congress. not to his state department. to the nra. >> i want to get the man in question himself, the man behind this lawsuit, cody wilson on. cbs news was able to sit down with him and ask him about this case and if he has any qualms about it. let's take a listen. >> what makes you comfortable with a world where people can pump out guns in the garage any time they want to? >> it will make me comfortable when people know the debate is over. the guns are downloadable. you cannot take them back. you can adjust your politics to this reality. you will not ask me to adjust mine. >> here is the thing. a lot of those specs are online and, in some ways, the genie is out of the bottle already. >> yeah. but you can make it illegal to possess them and that will discourage a lot of people. it's illegal to own an undetectable and untraceable firearm at this point. you could do the same thing with the plans. that's currently, until the settlement the other day, that was in fact the situation. public safety is important. we just had the worst mass shooting in our nation's history ten months ago. bump stocks is an example with something directly related to the number of people that were killed. and this government has still been unable to do anything about it. >> captain mark kelly, thank you for joining us. we appreciate it. coming up, actor and director reiner will be here to talk about, quote, fake news. unbelievable is next. in the movies, a lot of times, i tend to play the tough guy. but i wasn't tough enough to quit on my own. not until i tried chantix. chantix, along with support, helps you quit smoking. it reduced my urge to smoke to the point that i could stop. 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 life-threatening. stop chantix and get help right away if you have any of these. tell your healthcare provider if you've 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. my favorite role so far? being a non-smoker. no question about it. talk to your doctor about chantix. you guys all know that. here is what is unbelievable though. the president's son eric tweeting a video in support of the crowd. then the president himself re-tweeting that video. but here's what eric trump had to say back in june when speaking about public criticism of his father's administration. >> i have never seen hatred like this. it to me they are not even people. it's so, so sad. morali morality is gone. morals are out the window. we deserve so much better as a country. >> listen to what press secretary sarah huckabee sanders had to say just a few weeks ago. >> we are allowed to disagree, but we should be able to do so freely and without fear of harm. healthy debate on ideas and political philosophy is important, but the cause for harassment and push for any trump supporter to avoid the public is unacceptable. >> maybe the president and his administration should take their own advice, or perhaps the advice of the first lady, and be best. with me now actor and filmmaker reiner, director of the recent film shock and awe. this is new thing. it's been going on since 2016. the president hasn't said a word to his supporters to tell him to cool off, to chill out, to calm down. he stokes this. i asked somebody in the campaign about a year and a half ago now or in the midst of the campaign, the end of the campaign when it was really getting hot, i said does the president care, if one of us, one of journalists got hurt, does the president care? would the president care? >> and what was the answer? >> no. and this was an earnest answer between somebody that i had a good rapport with in the campaign. >> that goes along with everything we know about this guy, which is he only cares about himself. he doesn't care what happens to other people. he doesn't have empathetic feelings for other people, he just cares about what happens to him. >> when you don't like the answer, you'll boo the messenger, which is what happened to jim acosta last night. people don't want to hear the facts about the president it seems or donald trump supporters don't want to hear the facts. a lot of them tune us out and don't believe a single thing that they say. they believe him, which is propaganda or their friends and family, but they're not going to believe the media, even if the media is comporting with what they're seeing with their own ideas. "the washington post" has been keeping a running fact checker of the president's -- the way he speaks. they have just updated it. 4,229 false or misleading claims in 558 games. 7.5 claims a day. in just june or july, that's 16 lies or falsehoods a day. >> i think of it as two mainstream medias. you have "washington post, " "new york times," all the networks except for fox working hard to get the truth out. >> there are really good journalists at fox. look at ed henry's interview with scott pruitt. >> absolutely. we've got shepard smith. there are good journalists there. but this is the first time that you have mainstream media essentially divided into two halves, so that you have fox, breitbart, sinclair and alex jones, which has now been taken off of facebook, thank god. you know, trafficking in another narrative. and so, you know, shock and awe, with these guys, the four journalists who got the truth out during the run-up to the war, they were facing headwinds of patriotism, the trauma of 9/11, but they weren't facing the headwinds that real journalists who are working very hard now to get the truth out, which is this cement block, a wall that they cannot penetrate with the truth. and that's the scary part. >> donald trump ran on this and it was effective. he said that the media doesn't represent regular people. hollywood doesn't represent regular people. we are completely out of touch with regular people and it worked to his advantage. how as somebody who speaks in the media often, as someone who produces films like "shock and awe" but also somebody in hollywood, how do you push back on that. >> you just have to keep pounding away. there's nothing else you can do. look, it doesn't speak to the mainstream media. they're just angry. people are angry, and he will feed them whatever they want to keep that anger going. and you siee it in the rallies. he actually calls for this outrage and take it out against the media, take it out against immigrants, take it out against whoever you want. that's what he does, he keeps stirring it up. but you have to stay at it, there's no other way. >> bring the fact checking up to 11. >> if you can, i mean if you can. if you don't break through, we are going to have -- we are right now, it might be the last stage of a civil war. hopefully it won't be fought physically, but we are more divided than we ever have been and we have a president that is backed up by media. presidents have always spewed propaganda, liberals, democrats, republicans, everyone has. to push a policy, to push a rationale to go to war. but they have never been backed up by essentially in a sense state-run media. that's new and social media. it's all new. and it's very, very scary right now. >> everyone spins, certainly the lead-up to the iraq war is a really good example of when something that's not true can get us into a disastrous war, but it is important to point out that this president, the amount of times he says things that are verifiable false is completely unprecedented. >> right. >> completely unprecedented. >> but it works. it works because just like active measures, just like disinformation campaigns that the russians put out, they keep feeding on each other. if you say no collusion, or fake news, or witch hunt, you say it over and over and over again, you will cement people who believe in what you believe. but saying it over and over again doesn't make it true. and we know just based on what we've seen, there's all kinds of conspiracy right out there and obstruction of justice. he's now trying to make it so that when mueller comes with his report, his base will not believe it. >> he is the living embodiment of if you say a lie often enough, people will start to believe it. rob reiner, thank you so much. good to see you. >> thanks. >> we will be right back. it's pretty amazing out there. the world is full of more possibilities than ever before. and american express has your back every step of the way- whether it's the comfort of knowing help is just a call away with global assist. or getting financing to fund your business. no one has your back like american express. so where ever you go. we're right there with you. the powerful backing of american express. don't do business without it. don't live life without it. together, we're building a better california. and that will do it for me this hour. my friend, ali velshi, the one and only, is here now to take things away. >> that was a fun conversation with rob reiner. >> it was interesting. >> and it was interesting off air too, we needed a little web extra for that. >> i know. he keeps saying, and i agree with this completely, we're