A really happened. Voter opinion about robert mutual officer the investigat investigation. Plus, the great debate. Laurel. Laurel. Laurel. Or yanni. This is mtp daily, and it starts right now. Good evening im chuck todd here in new york. Yes, the laurel yanni discussion just started already. I promise we will delay that. Welcome to mtp daily. We begin with the fight for truth. In acue drupel dose of breaking news that calls into question a whole bunch of white house truths. First its thousands of pages of documents that have been released involving the Infamous Trump tower meeting led by the president s son. What do the documents largely confirm . The bombshell that the Trump Campaign was engaged in an evident of obtaining damaging evidence about Hillary Clinton. Second, new find prosecution the Senate Intelligence committee now knock down claims made by the president s House Republican allies who argue putins russia wasnt trying to help trumps campaign. But the senate intel competent, democrats and republicans say no, thats incorrect. Indeed, putin was trying to help one candidate. That was donald trump. Third, new Financial Disclosures from the white house suggest that the president knew about the hush money payment to Stormy Daniels and then misled the public about it. After all, it made it on to his Financial Disclosure. Fourth a bombshell story from the New York Times. Potentially undermining the president s claims of an antitrump bias at the fbi. The report details the secret origins of the trump investigation revealing the fbis evident the keep their counterintelligence investigation secret, out of concern that the mere knowledge of its existence might devastate the Trump Campaign. I wonder what Hillary Clinton is thinking about that right now . Joining me now is den delanian msnbc intelligence and National Security reporter as well as our panelist here. Katy tur, my colleague here at msnbc and host of the 2 00 p. M. Hour and every monday on this show. And zerlina maxwell. Ken, lets break things down today. There is a lot out there. Can we sort through whats new first and what matters . And well keep going down the line here. Of these new revelations today, i assume you think the fbi news is the biggest but walk me through it. Im not sure i think there is a lot in that New York Times story we already know. Not the code name crossfire hurricane but some other narratives. The biggest thing i was looking for in the trump tower transcript disclosures was what does donald trump jr. Have to say about his fathers knowledge of the meeting . The answer to that question is he claims he never consulted his father before when he was setting up the meeting and then afterwards. He claims his understanding is that donald trump, the president learned about this meeting only when it was reported in the news media. To believe that, you have to believe that the blocked number that donald trump jr. Called that democrats are pointing out are in the phone records was not his father, donald trump suhr, who known to have used a blocked number at that time. That is one takeaway. The other takeaway is the transcripts is the extent to which they portray that donald trump jr. Was completely looking at this as a way to get incriminating evidence against Hillary Clinton. He started the meeting with one line, i understand you have some information for me. When the meeting was dragging he asked the question, what have you got on hillary. When he learned they didnt have much on hillary witnesses say he was disappointed and quickly dismissed them. There is a timing issue that i have always had with the trump tower meeting and the supposed other outreaches that were taking place, rogerstone and wikileaks, mike flynn, what he may have been doing, Michael Cohen and what he may have been doing. But the trump tower meeting is sort this separate entity. And the trump tower meeting, if you would have believed the story that comes out of the Senate Judiciary committee, nothing came of it. And yet it seems like everything came from something in that sixweek period. Yeah. Remember the donald trump had promised to make a speech when that meeting was in the process of being set up about Hillary Clinton suggesting that he had some information about her councilmember then he never made that speech. He canceled it. The meeting did not the incriminating information that the trump team was hoping to get from that meeting did not materialize bay all accounts. But intelligence officials looking at it say it could have been a dangle by russian intelligence. It could also have been an intent to plan come promant. Man if that meeting hadnt happened. All these emails and donald trump jr. Asking for information on hillary the russians would know this and would be able to hold it oufr Donald Trumps head. This is another form of a kompromat . It could have been that. But the news media exposed if meeting taking away the potential for that. Final question on the senate intel report. It seems as if it came out today and essentially disputes the house report. Not surprising. What else did you learn from it that you think is important when comparing it to the house report . I think they gave a lot the senate it is a bipartisan evident. Republicans and democrats agreed gave more credence to the remarks from for example, the head of the nsa. And just they found that in fact there was evidence that the russians were supporting the Trump Campaign and that the trade craft exercise to reach that conclusion was good. Remember, the house Intelligence Committee criticized the trade craft without evidence because they said it was classified Testimony Senate is refuting that. The other thing we got today was the Financial Disclosure form from the president. The white house is as if its like dont miss this footnote. Let me show you this Michael Cohen its very important to them that everybody notice this in this report. Is this just them showing the Ethics Office the office of ethics, government ethics, that they are following directions this team . Or why is it so important that we notice this repayment now . Because somebody concluded that they had an obligation to disclose it. And probably should have disclosed it last year, but didnt, and now they are coming clean. Often in these kinds of forms cases you can essentially mea culpa we should have disclosed it and you are fine. It doesnt become a criminal issue unless some prosecutor is looking at you and decides that you willfully hid it from the be approximate. We know thats at issue here and the office of ethics referred it to the Justice Department. On the form, the loan repayment to Michael Cohen is somewhere in the 100,000 to 250,000 range. Rudy giuliani claimed that donald trump paid him in excess of 400,000. There seems to be a missing chunk of money here. That suggests that maybe Rudy Giuliani maybe did not have all the facts because you assume if they decided to disclose it they disclosed it accurately. That is something we will have to see. I think donald trump used that same phrase, that Rudy Giuliani needed to get his facts straight. Yeah. We ran through a lot. Panel, katy, you are first. Crossfire hurricane. Now that song is in my head. Its interesting. I like that you pointed out that this is all happening within this sixweek period. Thats the wind here. Something is up. It was a contention time. To bring you back to the moment, donald trump was trying to secure the nomination. He had it but there was questions about whether the delegates would lead which is why he hired paul many of the and Paul Manafort had all these shady dealings but then again he was somebody who knew politics and knew conventions. Thats why he was brought on. The family was really happy about it. In the middle of the Democratic National convention, suddenly donald trump is on Stage Holding a press conference asking russia to find more of health cares ema more of Hillary Clintons emails. So much going on. Finding out more about this trump tower meeting only raises more questions three or four or five weeks prior to donald trump being on stage talking about Hillary Clintons emails. When i look at don jr. s testimony or his interview, because he wasnt sworn under oath, a couple of things caught my eye. Number one he kept saying i dont know, i dont recall. Thats legal advice. Thats what you say when you dont want to guess at facts. Thats right. But heres the thing. There are a couple of thing that a son or anybody who has had a phone call from the president knows, which is that he calls from a blocked number. I have gotten phone calls from him. He calls from a blocked number. I made sure to ask from those who know him if that was just me. One time i got an unblocked number. I saved that sucker for a while and then it was no longer in use. Everybody i talked to said they get calls from blocked numbers. You would think that Donald Trumps son would know whether or not thinks dad got a blocked number or not. Know definitively. But legally why reveal it. Why . It does raise more questions. Also he seemed to know nothing about donald trump, his father, crafting that statement for him aboard air force one regards to this meeting. That to me is something that obviously we are going to find out more about later on when the mueller results come out, if we see them. But that raised some flags as well. What did you learn today that made you feel exculpatory versus damning towards trump . From everybodys testimony they were baited into this meeting. They wanted something, sordid as it was, information on Hillary Clinton. What they got was a dangle. And they didnt receive night we still dont have a why in this meeting. To the extent donald trump yur is telling the truth they dont have a lot of problems. Its whether or not he is telling the truth. Thats speculation. What is concrete is that the Senate Intelligence committee has said russia enter convenience on Donald Trumps behalf. Hard stop. It leaves devin nuness house Intelligence Committee out on a limb. And to the extent that they have confused and forced republicans to confuse the integrity of the committee with his personal honor has been a stain on that committee and that has been reinforced by this position. Zerlina, i know you want to talk about the New York Times decision, what to reveal and not to reveal about fbi investigations. You mean that there are no connections between russia and the Trump Campaign. The totality. I think the Trump Campaigns official line has been we attempted to perhaps coordinate in some way to get some dirt on Hillary Clinton. Thats their official story. But the key fact here is that an attempt to clued is still a problem for them in the legal conteb. I think thats what i take away from today. Not much has changed. We just have more meat on the bones. We have more information to fill in some of the holes in terms of the story. As noah said, i think that the key here is that they dont tell the truth ever. From basically going back to the campaign, november 11th, 2016, hope hicks tells the New York Times in a statement there were no contacts and coordination between the Trump Campaign and russia. We know that is completely untrue and every stage they have lied about it until its been revealed by the media. I go back to the meeting at the trump tower. For the donald trump jr. Story ha to be accurate, everybody else has to be inaccurate about what happened. The timing of wikileaks, the timing of the decision to change the ukraine language. It all has to be one giant coincidence. It is a bizarre coincidence or Paul Manafort acting on his own. Manafort on his own, papadopoulos acting on his own, page acting on his own, flynn acting on his own. They were in and out, coffee boys, they had little to do with the campaign. There is a lot of smoke. Its all fine if donald trump jr. Is tell the truth. Russia, if you are listening fine those emails, i want to see them. That was answer incredible moment and will always be. To that extent it raises the possibility there is the element of coordination here. Aligned versus coordinated. That should matter. Because if the russians reach out the to the Clinton Campaign many of my colleagues said they would have called the fbi. Previously when inappropriate information was given to the campaign thats what the campaign did. Algs campaign in 2000 when they found out they got a stolen debate tape of george w. You can compare the two. My point is al gore did exactly what everybody claims they would have done, they called the fbi. I totally agree. Yeah. If you are asking will voters care its hard to compare Donald Trumps campaign with anybody else. I hate to be this person, old man yells at cloud, do voters care about this investigation . No. They dont. They do to an extent. If Robert Mueller comes out with something extraordinarily damning look at what this administration did when they were campaigning for the presidency. Look at how they coordinated or clued. I think voters will absolutely care. Up until that happens peep are more concerned about their jobs, about health care, about tariffs, whether or not donald trump is going to use his nuclear button. There are all sorts of things out there that are sorry for the word trumping the mueller investigation. Not the say that people arent curious and do want to know whats going to come out of it. All of that is true. But when indictments come down and we have guilty pleas its in the going to matter. In the heel context they are going to do their work. Whether or not voters say thats a big deal that may be irrelevant on criminal charges. And he wont be able to run again in 2020. We have actual voters who were asked last night by our friend peter hart. We will find out how they feel about investigation. It is fascinating. It gets at this core this to me is the put it this way, bob mueller needs to watch this focus group. Up next its former cia chief john brennan. Well be right back. With this clever little app called audible. You can listen to the stories you love while doing the things you love, outside. Binge better. Audible. Sure. Mom,whats up son . Alk . I cant be your it guy anymore. What . You guys have xfinity. You can do this. Whats a good wifi password, mom . You still have to visit us. I will. No. Make that the password you stillohave toovisit us. Thats a good one. [ chuckles ] download the xfinity my account app and set a password you can easily remember. One more way comcast is working to fit into your life, not the other way around. Welcome back. On this very busy day of breaking russia news we figure we should use some of our experts, john brennan joins me now. Mr. Brennan i know we are keeping you busy today. Thank you for sticking around. Sure. Let me start from what we learned from the Senate Intelligence committee versus the house Intelligence Committee. You and i have had conversations about sort the House Committee being broken. What you read and saw from the Senate Intel Committee today i wanted to get your initial iraq reaction. I was up at the hill this morning along with jim clapper and rogers, former head of nsa. We testified in front of that committee. We answered a lot of questions that they had. I must say they are conducting their responsibilities in a very good manner. Its bipartisan. Its thorough. Itsrigorous. All the things that the house counterpart has not done. I think there has been great leadership by senators burr and warner. Their findings basically defended the Intelligence Communitys assess meant. I have confidence that the Senate Intelligence committees ultimate report will come out with some recommendations about how we can prevent recurrences of these types of efforts or at least make it much more difficult for foreign entities or malactors to interfere in the election. Walk viewers through the difference between what the Senate Intelligence committee is doing and what Robert Mueller is doing. I think its important to hear it from someone like yourself. Explain the difference. Well, bob muellers charge as special counsel is the try to get to the bottom of russian interference in the election and to find out whether or not there was any criminal activity that took place during these russian efforts. Thats why he has come out with some indictments already. That is a criminal investigation. It is a Law Enforcement evident. The Senate Intelligence committee and th