Starting off a new week on a monday night. Good evening from our nbc news headquarters in new york. Day 200 of the Trump Administration, and some of the news is indeed good in the Trump Administration. There are many robust Economic Indicators and this weekends unanimous 150 vote at the u. N. Was in fact a huge diplomatic victory. After touting all of that this weekend the president changed the subject. He went off on twitter again. Again calling the news media fake and uncorking a vicious attack on a member of the u. S. Senate. In terms of the president s preferred metric, the polls, there was more bad news on that front. A new poll found that 38 of americans approve of the way donald trump is handling his job as president. 56 disapprove. It also found that just 24 trust almost all or most of what they hear from the white house. 73 say they trust some or nothing at all of what they hear from the white house. Hours before that poll was released the president wrote on twitter the trump base is stronger and bigger than ever before. Despite phony fake news polling. He saved his toughest criticism from a sitting u. S. Senator. An attack that took place over a ninehour span. It started this morning when he wrote interesting to watch senator richard blum b that will talking about hoax russian collusion when he was a phony vietnam conartist. Never in u. S. History has anyone lied or defrauded voters like blumenthal. He told stories about his vietnam battles and conquests, how brave he was. And it was all a lie. He cries like a baby and begged for forgiveness like a child. Now he judges collusion. More than eight and a half hours later he finished with this. I think senator blumenthal should take a nice long vacation in vietnam where he lied about his service, so he could at least say he was there. Blumenthal has apologized for saying he served in vietnam. He was in the marine reserves during the war but was not deployed to vietnam. Speaking with chris hayes on this network tonight, he deflected the personal attack and placed the attention back on the mueller investigation. There are growing ominous threats, tweets and warnings that we have seen, the world has seen that were heading towards a collision between bob mueller and the president of the United States. On this day 200 of the trump presidency, we took a moment to look back on day 100 and what was going on back then. Jim comey was still the fbi director. Robert mueller was still a lawyer in private practice. Reince priebus and sean spicer still worked in the west wing. And the president was confident republicans would repeal and replace obamacare. Here now, a look at some of the most memorable things the president has said in just the intervening 100 days. What do you make of the north Korean Leader . At a young age he was able to resume power. A lot of people im sure tried to take that power away. Obviously he is a pretty smart cookie. Well be discussing details of what has proven to be a very difficult situation between israel and the palestinians. It is something i think is frankly not as difficult as people have thought over the years. How am i doing . Im president , right . Can you believe it . I was going to fire comey knowing there was no good time to do it. In fact when i decided to do it i said to myself, i said, you you know, this russia thing with trump and russia is a madeup story. No politician in history, and i say this with great assurely, has been treated worse or more unfairly. And i never asked once what the new nato headquarters cost. I refused to do that, but it is beautiful. You were referring to the testimony of james comey vindicating you. No collusion. No obstruction. He is a leaker. I heard it was 17 agencies. I said boy, thats a lot. Do we even have that many intelligence agencies . Its an honor to be with you. Thank you. By the way, just a question. Did president obama ever come to a jamboree . Sometimes they say he doesnt act president ial. With the exception of the late great Abraham Lincoln i can be more president ial than any president thats ever held this office. Thats a walk back through contemporary history. Lets bring in our starting panel. Moderator of Washington Week on pbs, robert costa. Senior White House Correspondent for bloomberg, margaret tolive. And covering the president s working vacation in new jersey means the firstever studio visit for the Washington Post, Phillip Rucker. Welcome to you all. Phillip, well start with you. So its very important apparently that the president , that we call this a working vacation. Hes on vacation. This is what happens today on a rainy day in bedminster, new jersey. Not content to nick a sitting u. S. President. He goes for a personal fullon takedown. Thats right. And on a day like today, he might have otherwise been on the golf course. Instead it was raining and he had a lot to say on twitter and had a lot to say into the afternoon. His aides are saying hes working, he has a number of cabinet members coming by. Hell be having a briefing tomorrow on the opioid epidemic. But hes having a lot of time to think, to stew, and to fret over this russia investigation, which continues to expand. I was watching you watch that compilation. How does it feel . You lived all those moments firsthand. We lived all 200 days and they were all pretty special. This was a remarkable start to this presidency. Not like anything we ever expected or covered before. But were on for the ride. Well see what the next 200 days bear. Robert costa, what have you been able to ascertain about the president s state of mind since its germane to what were talking about tonight . Im not a psychologist, brian, but when it comes to his behavior, not much has changed. His leadership style has not changed, even though hes had a change in personnel. In particular at the top with a new chief of staff, general john kelly. My sources in the west wing say general kelly is trying to stabilize the staff. Hes not trying to change the way the president operates. And you see annage kno agnag an acknowledgement across the white house that this social media behavior will continue, will not abate. Because this is who President Trump is. Margaret, lets talk about general kelly. You, among other journalists, were reporting that just perhaps a new sheriff in town might modulate and moderate what the president says on twitter and how often. So much for that, i guess, after today. What have you been able to learn about his Communications Inside the west wing and elsewhere with members of the staff . Well, brian, general kellys mandate is twofold. One is to send clear signals to the staff about the staff behavior, both their engagements with the president and their engagements amongst themselves. The other is to try to provide for President Trump a sounding board on issues that general kelly picks out. Its easy to look at the twitter some and say thats out the window. Trump showed him. But our understanding was never that all of the tweets were going to be censored or dialed back or anything like that. Even vetted. But there are some areas in which both general kelly and National Security and defense officials are urging the president to use caution. So you see, he has been more careful so far in talking about issues hike nor s like north k venezuela. And if he wants to go off on the media and a democratic senator, thats probably not general kellys priority at this point. Robert, because you spend so much time and attention talking to congress, the dome right over your shoulder, i want to talk about some of these poll numbers with you. 73 dont trust all or some of whats coming out of this white house. 6 in 10 americans define this presidency as a failure thus far and dont find the president honest thus far. The only place those numbers will have a similar impact to the west wing is that building behind you. Theyll be so closely watched with the men and women who have all of the houses up for reelection in 18, they have to in effect run on this. That is very true. In the last six months we have seen a revolution about their expectations. I used to think months ago maybe the president would change and be more of a main stream republican president. Just like thoughts on the staff that he could evolve and adapt in that way. Those are gone out the window on now theres on capitol hill. With health care having been paused or maybe even dead theres a prayer among republicans that the economy continues to be pretty steady. I think a tax cut and Business Growth more than anything they could continue on from the white house is what will protect them next year when they try to keep the house and senate. Phillip, understanding youre not his explainer or interpreter, can you explain these tweets about his base . Where is he getting the notion of it expanding . I dont know where hes getting the notion that the base is expanding because its just not. One of the most striking statistics in the cnn poll is his base is softening. That the support is shrinking among republicans. Thats a real problem inside the white house and theyre aware of it. Theyre trying to work on it. Trump, what he sees are these ral yis. Full arena in West Virginia last week. He sees the enthusiasm and the attention on twitter. But when you measure the support out in the country, its softening from where it was last november. About these numbers, we have not heard a lot from the president about polling. He thinks theyre all fake. But his political operation in the white house, especially Kellyanne Conway who is trained as a pollster, theyre looking at these numbers. They do some of their own measurements internally and theyre keeping an eye on it. Theyre concerned about the softening of support. Margaret, is there a metric for judging the general Kelly Administration as a subset within the trump west wing . What do you think he would be comfortable in being judged on . My sense of general kelly not having known him very long is he would prefer to be not talked about all the time. But so much for that. Were totally going to do that right now. But one is how much public infighting you see. I think the mcmaster scenario is an interesting one to watch, because general kelly effectively helped to, on some level shut that down when he had the president come out with the very unusual state around seeing Jared Kushner echo some of those sentiments as well in terms of standing by the National Security adviser. But at the same time, you see this active campaign continuing. So part of general kellys mandate is going to be to stop the very public infighting among some of these cross currents. And the early indications are that he commands a lot of respect and a good degree of fear. But i think its going to take several weeks to understand his thinking on all of the personnel moves, as well as his thinking on how the president can possibly reset some of his relations with congress, which is going to be really important coming out of that august recess. Margaret, our viewers probably dont know, you are the new head of the White House Correspondents association, i guess because you had so much free time as it is. I wasnt doing anything else. Weve been able to see these briefings on television of late. Do you think that is a trend thats here to stay . I really do. I think it is back by default unless we hear otherwise. I think Sarah Huckabee sanders, the White House Press secretary, is personally committed to that. And empowered to do that by the current leadership. The president seems to be okay with it. General kelly seems to be okay with it. And she certainly seems comfortable. So i would expect the press corps expects that its going to continue now as a matter of course. Robert, you were trying to get in here before we take a break . Real quick. The point about h. R. Mcmaster. We have all this reporting that the right the trump base is very unhappy with him. But this is really about more than general mcmaster. The president maneeds to make a crucial decision on afghanistan, whether to increase troop numbers or not. Its about what does the president really want to have as his foot print in the middle east. Yeah, the president s statement in support broke just prior to us going on the air friday night. As i mentioned, well take our first break here. Thanks to our initial panel. Coming up, the president may be on vacation, but thats one man still working back in washington this week. That would be robert mueller, the latest on the russia investigation when the 11th shower continues. Were just getting under way. Forhas adapted to my weightic and shape. So i sleep deeply. And wake up ready to perform. Only exclusive retailers carry tempurpedic. Find yours at tempurpedic. Com. The special counsel is subject to the rules and regulations of the Justice Department. We dont engage in fishing expeditions. In the course of the issues he is looking at, if he finds evidence of a crime, can he look at that . If he finds evidence of a crime thats within the scope of what we agreed is the appropriate scope then he can. That was Deputy Attorney general Rob Rosenstein yesterday discussing the ongoing russia investigation led by robert mueller. As the president and his aides continue to dismiss it as a hoax, a witch hunt, a fabrication, robert mueller, who turns 73 years old today, and his team continue to investigate any role russia may have played in the 2016 election. Joining our conversation tonight, joyce vance back on the broadcast. A 25year veteran federal prosecutor. He spent almost eight years as a u. S. Attorney and was among the first u. S. Attorneys appointed by president barack obama. Robert costa and Phillip Rucker remain with us. So joyce, when you looked up and saw rosenstein on television, did you find his comments pointed or routine . I thought they were very pointed comments. Rosenstein is really an apolitical kind of prosecutor. Hes concerned with the law, with the facts, with doing the right thing. I dont see him as being someone who would be very interested in political spin or buffeted by the politics surrounding this investigation. And i think you hear him saying that here when he tells you that mueller can investigate anything thats fairly within the scope of the special counsel ground. So whats the motivation for him to grant an interview . Hes been an inside player. Hes been the kind of guy who has not enjoyed the limelight, weve been led to believe he has received foreseeing his name in the media. Its an interesting point. I was thinking about that over the weekend. I cant remember the last time a sitting Deputy Attorney general made a sunday Morning Television appearance like this. Hes not someone who enjoys the limelight. Hes not someone who feels the need to selfpromote. Hes a very serious career prosecutor, probably one of the longest running u. S. Attorneys in our countrys history, serving both republican and democratic administrations. And if mr. Rosenstein is doing something, its because he thinks its important to getting the job done in that interview with chris wallace, he referred repeatedly to doing the right thing and his goal was to do the right thing. Robert costa, just imagine the pressure on all of these players, the department of justice, the fbi, the special counsel, all the cocounsels he has hired. And imagine, here we are day 200. When we reach day 300, will the central theme of this Administration Still be russia . There are deep concerns, brian, in the Law Enforcement community, in the Justice Department, about preserving the integrity and the institution and also explaining how this is all unfolding. You ask where will we be on day 300 . Ive been covering attorney general sessions over the past few weeks. They feel like a lot of the people in this country dont understand how rosenstein stepped in to appoint mueller because attorney general sessions recused himself. By putting himself out there, rosenstein, im told, is just trying to better explain where this institution that may be a bit fragile because of these investigations stands. Phillip rucker, Kellyanne Conway doing her job defending the boss this weekend, said something again on television. Their defense against mueller appears to be to go on offense about mueller and the team and kind of this whiff of conflict of interest. They keep saying that mueller has hired attorneys who are democratic donors. What is the story behind that . So theyre looking at the 16 attorneys mueller has hired doing sort of basic background Check Research and finding a number of them have made Campaign Donations to Hillary Clinton specifically, but theres a different change of tone when you look at what some of trumps lawyers are saying. Theyre taking this investigation much more seriously than they had been four, five weeks ago. Theres a new lawyer now at the white house trying to take it seriously as an investigation. I think thats the shift in tone because they know this investigation, this probe, is becoming more serious, its escalating, looking into finances and other issues, as well. Joyce, when you first heard this argument going against some of the players that mueller had hired, did you think it was kind of a ground softening operation to lay a predicate argument for potentially going after mueller or justifying his dismissal . We hear a lot of that coming out of the president specifically. Hes trying to lay some ground work with his base to try to denigrate mueller, to try to indicate mueller doesnt have credibility, doesnt have integrity. So if this investigation breaks bad against him or against members of his administration then he can say oh, look, they were playing gotcha with me all al