Language of yesterday, and the news today of whats being reported as a predawn raid on the home of Paul Manafort in alexandria, virginia last month. The fbi raid and the subsequent search for tied to his business dealings and Financial Relationships both in the u. S. And around the world. The Washington Post was the first to report the raid writing, quote, federal agents appeared at Paul Manaforts home without warning, the day after he met voluntarily with the staff for the Senate Intelligence committee, and continues, the search warrant indicates investigators may have argued to a federal judge they had reason to believe manafort could not be trusted to turn over all records in response to a grand jury subpoena. A spokesman for Paul Manafort says, quote, fbi agents executed a search warrant at one of mr. Manafo manaforts residences and he has consistently cooperated with Law Enforcement and other serious inquiries and did so on this occasion as well. Just a reminder, we also now have a better idea of the sheer amount of evidence the congressional committees have already collected, specifically the Senate Judiciary committee. The Chairmans Office says the Trump Campaign has turned over about 20,000 pages worth of documents. Manafort himself, 400 pages and donald trump jr. About 250 pages of documents and going back into our archives, as manaforts name was mentioned in stories about the russia investigation more and more often, heres what the white house said about the man who ran the Trump Campaign as its chairman. He was replaced long before the election. You know that, right . He was replaced long before the election. When all of this stuff started coming out. It came out during the election, but Paul Manafort, who is a good man, also by the way, Paul Manafort was replaced long before the election took place. He was only there for a short period of time. There was discussion of Paul Manafort who played a limited role for a very limited amount of time. He was hired to oversee the delegates operation. He was involved with the campaign for a total of just under five months. Which brings us to our leadoff panel. Hallie jackson has agreed to stay up with us, paul butler again, and sam stein who is also an msnbc an itself. Welcome to you all. Granted, he was only with the campaign a short period of time. Whats been the reaction today, and tonight to the trump camp to this story of the raid . Yeah, listen. I think you are seeing, obviously, the outside legal teams handling these russia questions, and that montage you played of donald trump and sean spicer talking about Paul Manafort is a revisionist history. He did not play a limited role for a period of time. He played a significant role for a good chunk of critical time when donald trump got the republican nomination, and now obviously, youre seeing this latest move what were learning about now that happened based op our sources on july 26th, reported by the Washington Post, this raid at his house. A Significant Development here. Ill tell you this. In my conversations with people close to Paul Manafort over the last month or so, maybe a couple of weeks or so, there is a lot of discussion about cooperating fully. You hear it publicly, and ill say that as well as privately. To be frank here, theres not much of an option because if he wasnt cooperating fully, there would be even bigger issues with these conversations that are being had now with the congressional investigators because remember, thats operating toen a parallel track to the special counsel in the investigation, and the fbi raid as has been reported too. And paul butler, something hallie just said leads me to you. I dont know much, but i know this about what we witnessed at manaforts home. Number one, federal judges make young federal prosecutors sing for their supper. They want justification. They want hard evidence that they will grant this search warrant for probable cause. The wording in our Fourth Amendment, and number two, this must have happened because someone thought he still isnt giving us all of what we need, even though he had just been in to talk to them. So federal agents show up at your house in the dead of night, knock loudly on the door and say, get up and get out. We have a warrant to Touch Everything in your house. Frankly, brian, in drug cases, police do this all the time to low income black and brown people, but in a case like this, a white collar case with a rich, white guy. Its a gangster move by special counsel mueller and its practical in the sense that he does not trust Paul Manafort to comply with the subpoena, and good faith and honestly turn over documents. Thats why he has to send the feds in, but its also expressive. Its designed to send a message to everybody from President Trump on down. You think this is a witch hunt . Let me show you what a serious, aggressive federal investigation looks like. So sam stein, however the white house tries to play down the role of mr. Manafort yeah. This is a big move and an indicator that he is a huge person of interest. He was always going to be a person of interest because he was a big player on this campaign, and he had these contacts in the ukraine. There was a question of why he was tapped for the position of campaign chairman. He hadnt done a campaign in the modern era, and he was a relic of the nixon era. From the outside looking in, what they think they can do with manafort is flip him. This he knows what happened on the campaign, that he knows about the trump business empire, that there might be enough there to get him to turn on trump, where other people in the trump orbit arent as loyal. He was pushed off the campaign, and that isnt always the case. That isnt always the case with Trump Associates and perhaps they are saying he is the easiest target to flip. Heres a piece of the Washington Post that sam is talking about. Manna minority manafo manaforts allies fear unrelated to the 2016 campaign in hopes that the former campaign operative would provide information against others in trumps inner circle in exchange for lessening his own legal exposure. That is a lot of words to say what sam just did, and that is they are hoping to flip him. Ill just say that i think that it is fair to say that inside some of the inner circle surrounding the president there is speculation about that very issue, and critically, speculation about who the special counsel might be trying to build a case against, if not, solely. Lets say Paul Manafort as the Washington Post is saying and sam is discussing. What might be that fish to flip or however the analogy goes . Which person you might be looking at that could be closer to President Trump, and perhaps the special counsel has their eye on as well. At this point, it is speculation, but thats not stopping as you know, brian, folks in washington, from buzzing about it. Absolutely, and paul, so often when you are on as a former fed yourself, we ask you to express to our audience in no Uncertain Terms the awesome power of the federal government, and the almost limitless resources that mr. Mueller and his at last count, 16 very able cocounsel have. And brian, i dont feel sorry for my of these guys because if these allegations are correct, they have conspired to subvert democracy, and obstruct justice. At the same time, nobody wants to be the subject of your own special investigation by 16 of the best prosecutors in the country, accompanied by many amazing fbi agents. Paul manafort, they are not only looking at him with regard to collusion, reportedly they are investigating money laundering, failing to file as a Foreign Agent and fraudulent real estate transaction. Hallie is right. I like her expression. Fish to flip. If they are starting on the bottom and the Campaign Chairperson is the bottom, we can only imagine what the top is. Sam, also another item in the Washington Post story caught your interest about notes that they have been looking for. Why is that . Well, to me, you know, if you are running the campaign, first of all, you take copious notes and you have memos and they circulate all the time. Manafort, again, did not come from the most modern political background. He had been an agent, as was mentioned. He had russian contacts. There were real estate deals and these are the transactions that have a huge paper trail. Those are the notes you look for, but what struck me most because they felt like he might destroy these things. Thats where i read into it. They felt like that has to be an underlying assumption. To have to go that quickly, predawn raid would suggest that these people are nervous about evidence not being there when we get there, and they have a suspicion there is evidence. Hallie jackson, this will continue to come up at the podium, which these days is in northern new jersey. Right. And what will the response continue to be . It will be, take it to the outside counsel. Yep. K its what we have heard all along. Since john dowd and those folks came on board, you will see potentially a greater presence from ty cobb, who was brought on specifically to deal with these exact questions. He is now on the white house payroll because of all this, and to talk about this kind of thing. I imagine hell take a turn at the podium, and be an increased presence when it comes to i think answering reporters questions and trying to push sort of the White House Point of view, and the white house perspective on this. Its my sense that Sara Huckabee sanders is going to try to insulate that part of the Communications Shop against this. That said, we have been saying this and we know this. This is the thing that annoys the president the most. He hates when people ask questions about it. He hates his staffers getting questions about it. You know, the response might be to the president , too bad because theres going to continue to be these stories coming out for as long as this special counsel investigation continues, which could be months, if not, years. By the way on ty cobb from his name to his mustache, who would have to have been a character created for the netflix version of this show had he not already existed in real life. So mr. Butler, a final note on the special counsel. He has never been a flashy guy. He has always been kind of a quiet, steady operator. He has never been into send a message really, in his legal career. Are you surprised at how audacious and public this is, and think of the neighbors in this small highrise community in alexandria, virginia. Everyone knows what happened that morning. Some people saw the black suvs outside. Theres that aspect now in manafo manaforts life as well. The president has called into question the legitimacy and objectivity of this investigation. No prosecutor likes that, so he wants to let the president know that this is a fair, objective, and the president of the United States needs to stop talking about witch hunts and that gives the prosecutor more fuel to show there is something there. Sam stein, a last word . It was remarkable how this didnt leak. Think about how long it took from the raid itself. That suggests a lot about how mueller is running his tight ship here. Hallie jackson is on 10 00 a. M. That sound is people washing to go to bed to be up and be ready. Thank you, paul butler and sam stein. Thanks to our first panel. Time for our first break, and coming up in the escalating verbal war evbetween the u. S. A north korea, the north has sent a rather personal message to donald trump. More on that when the 11th hour continues. Were just getting started. Its ok that everybody ignores me when i drive. Its fine. Because i get a safe driving bonus check every six months im accident free. Because i dont use my cellphone when im driving. Even though my family does, and leaves me all alone. Heres something else. I dont share it with mom. I dont. Right, mom . I have a brand new putter you dont even know about its awesome. Safe driving bonus checks, only from allstate. Sometimes i leave the seat up on purpose. Switching to allstate is worth it. Rethink your allergy pills. Flonase sensimist allergy relief helps block 6 key inflammatory substances with a gentle mist. Most allergy pills only block one. And 6 is greater than one. Flonase sensimist. Tand the alzheimersf association is going to make it happen. But we wont get there without you. Visit alz. Org to join the fight. Thats why at comcast were continuing to make4 7. Our services more reliable than ever. Like technology that can update itself. An advanced fibernetwork infrustructure. New, more Reliable Equipment for your home. And a new culture built around customer service. It all adds up to our most Reliable Network ever. One that keeps you connected to what matters most. Theyve changed and how we meet. Our phones have evolved, isnt time our networks did too . Introducing americas largest, most reliable 4g lte combined with the most wifi hotspots. Xfinity mobile. Call or go to xfinitymobile. Com. What the president is doing was sending a strong message to north korea in language that kim jongun would understand because he doesnt seem to understand diplomatic language. I think americans should sleep well at night, have no concerns about this particular rhetoric of the last few days. Get a little more comfortable with being on camera. That was secretary of state Rex Tillerson today trying to dial down any fears of a north Korean Nuclear threat. His tone decidedly different from the president who less than 24 hours earlier had threatened fire and fury. The likes of which the world has never seen. We learned from the New York Times today the president came up with that himself. Put another way, the u. S. Position in the most volatile region in the world was not formlatfor formlated by the u. S. Government, but was made up in a clubhouse in bedminster, new jersey. North korea has responded personally by saying sound dialogue is not possible with such a person bereft of reason, and only absolute force can work on him, and this is from the New York Times. North korea said thursday it was drawing up planning to launch four intermediate range Ballistic Missiles into waters near guam. Lots to talk about, and we have colonel jack jacobs, a recipient of the medal of honor for his combat actions in vietnam. We have the former policy chief for the Hillary Clinton campaign, and bill cohen, former u. S. Congressman and senator from the great state of maine who served as secretary of defense under former president bill clinton. So mr. Secretary, you outrank all of us here. You get the first question. What sprieurprised you about th president s words yesterday, and were you surprised to learn they were unprepared, uncure rated and kind of off the top of his head . Im not surprised because that has been the pattern he has followed since taking office and actually before taking office, so it doesnt come as a surprise. What comes as a surprise to me is that these advisers have been unable to make certain he reads off a script when dealing with something as important and volatile and dangerous with nuclear weapons. I mean, were basically rolling a rhetorical roulette playing that, and i think that greater care has to be taken. The president doesnt really feel the gravity of the responsibility of the office, and its surprising that with all of the comments made about dont tweet, dont say things off the cuff. Dont ad lib. He is still ad libbing and one thing that strikes me, if you study, which i kept on my desk, if you have an opponent thats of temperamental character, irritate him. The question is, we have two temperamental characters. Is President Trump trying to irritate kim jongun, or vice versa . But in the meantime, we are ratcheting up the rhetoric, and secretary tillerson did a great job of tapping it down, but now we have the North Koreans upping the ante. They are calling the president s statement bluster and a bluff, and they are calling it, and the question becomes, is the president going to say, it wasnt a bluff, this is serious . We have yet to see how this is going to play out, but its pretty dangerous if we continue on this path. These things become hard to walk back and hard to deescalate. Jack jacobs, you were on the air during the 4 00 p. M. Hour, and were about to see you in a clip. Matt dowd was on talking about the president s historical limitations and how it colors what he says and doesnt say. Well play that clip. One of the quotes of the day on this network, and well talk to the colonel right after this. He has no concept of history. Today is the anniversary of dropping the bomb on naug saw i can. When he announced that transgender people would not be in the military, it was on the anniversary of desegregating the military. Right. He has no concept. If those are indeed the president s limitations, were you surprised to learn that general kelly, alongside him, chief of staff was surprised to hear those words on north korea . Not at all. I think general kelly has the mission of trying to corral him, and he cant. He is trying the best with the people around the president , but at the end of the day, theres no way you can tell this guy how to act and what to do. He is going to do whatever he wants whe