reporter. she is the co-author of our exclusive nbc news report from just last night on robert mueller asking witnesses if trump knew with these hacked democratic e-mails before they were released. also back with us, jeremy bash, former chief of staff at the cia and pentagon. and we welcome back to the program, cynthia alneya, a federal prosecutor and a justice department veteran. welcome to you all. carol, about tonight's story, what is its central impact the your view? >> well, as you mentioned, this hacking and leaking strategically is the worst part. so this is significant in the sense we knew this was happening. but if mueller decides to move forward with an indictment, to me the key question is whether or not there are any americans that are tied to this. it's one thing for him to indict russians who will probably never be extradited and come over and stand trial in the united states. it's an entirely different ball game if there are americans named or unnamed should he decide to do an indictment. there could be strategic reasons why he wouldn't necessarily name an american who was part of hacking and leaking campaign. but either way -- >> it could give away too much of the case perhaps? >> it could give away, he could want to hold back on that to try to pressure somebody to try to cooperate with the investigation. there are a number of different reasons. that's what i think, that gets at the heart of the matter. not only an american but was there anyone in the trump campaign or any trump associates who's potentially corroborated with wikileaks. >> so cynthia, this guy mueller very rarely, that we can tell ever gets out over his skis. everything is planned and timed out. how will this be a part of the story? >> well, prosecutors and trial lawyers are basically story tellers. that's what he has to do. you know, his first indictment really tells the story of the bots and that role of spreading fake information and helping the trump campaign. this will be the second story. whether he does it through this indictment now or he does it somewhere down the line, he has to tell the story of how the russians stole this information and how it eventually got out. it makes sense to me that chapter one was the bots. chapter two is the whole story and the e-mails. and that at some point down the line, he has to also get to the important question about whether or not any americans were involved. in the meantime, he has all these little sub chapters in his story. different people pleading guilty and being forced to plead guilty. >> jeremy, how will this ratchet up the seriousness, overall? >> if you think about the two buckets, if you think about the propaganda, which was the subject of the indictment two weeks ago, and now the hacking and leaking was the potential future set of charges. in the propaganda, the trump team could say we were merely passive beneficiaries. different. >> that is extremely different. and that's the heart of this investigation. was there anyone specifically on the trump campaign who colluded with russia in part of its efforts to meddle in the election. and any american, it doesn't have to be on the trump campaign, would be extremely significant. much more so than what you said that any russians who wouldn't come here and wouldn't actually pay any penalty for their crimes. but if they're americans. you know, in our reporting yesterday, we know that mueller's team is asking. about the president's potential knowledge of these e-mails in advance. we also know it's not just papadopoulos, it's roger stone and he also talked publicly about his alleged connections to julian assange and wikileaks and there's a lot of questions about his knowledge of this. and while he was not on the campaign for a very long period of time, still a close contact with the president, then candidate trump. so there's that. and that relationship with trump and the papadopoulos piece. i think those pieces to play out are going to be the most significant in terms of this. >> jeremy, i keep picturing the mother of all white boards in mueller's offices in d.c. and all the tentacles as closely secured as a battle plan in warfare. and they have to know what would reveal too much about sources and methods. what would tip their hand to any other lawyers about where this is headed? where this is ultimately headed? >> that's probably right, brian. they probably want to reveal just enough to make the case. and even to make charges that they can prove beyond a reasonable doubt. so they have a very high ethical bar in bringing charges but they obviously don't want to reveal too much because the propaganda happened in the open, in the clear. it was an open source activity. and therefore can be discussed. this hacking was really the work of russian intelligence agencies we know that. it's a lot more sensitive, a lot more dicey to reveal. >> cynthia, how does knowing robert mueller as you do change the lens through which you view this? i guess it is another way of saying, how does he look at all this from his world view? >> he's fundamentally a marine. and i think he looks at it through a patriotic lens. that the president is not doing anything about the russian intervention in our election and he is going to tell the american people story. people that story. and he's going to the find out what happened. and pretty much anyone involved is going to be sorry. if anybody is involved, they ought to go see bob mueller or move to russia because otherwise they're going to end up in jail. >> that says a lot. we keep talking about the bots, the hacking, the false information. in real-time, a lot of us, most of us, all of us didn't know what we were seeing online on the web. we knew a nakedly false story. when we saw it. but these were -- this was an interesting intervention into our electronics. >> and there's a lot of political noise. you can say it was drop in the ocean. it didn't affect the outcome. but again, this hacking piece, that was discussed in the october 2016 statement by the director of national intelligence and the secretary of homeland security that this was under the authorship of the russian federation. and unlike propaganda which happens, legal and illegal, hacking, only illegal. hacking only done by someone trying to do something improper during an election season. >> i think after tonight we are left with the quote, he's fundamentally a marine. we're much abliged to you for tonight's conversation. appreciate all three of you being here with us. and coming up as we continue, continued chaos, continued leaks. word of more impending departures. or as they call it in the trump west wing, thursday. and later, what vladimir putin told megyn kelly today about his nuclear weapons capability, conveniently unveiled 17 days before his election which is not predicted to be a squeaker, by the way. the "11th hour" just getting underway on a thursday night. but i'm not standing still... and with godaddy, i've made my ideas real. ♪ ♪ i made my own way, now it's time to make yours. ♪ ♪ everything is working, working, just like it should ♪ as we mentioned, this week brings more chaos. to the trump white house. national security advisor h.r. mcmaster may be the next departure. our own nbc news colleague nicole wallace reports the white house preparing for a mcmaster exit as early as the end of this month. mcmaster was brought in to replace michael flynn, you recall who was fired after less than a month on the job for lying about contact he made with russians during the campaign. in a statement the white house said we frequently face rumor and innuendo about senior administration officials there are no personnel announcements at this time. news of mcmaster's apparent departure comes a day after hope hicks tendered her resignation. all of this comes amid questions about the president's son-in-law and his security clearance. speculation that john kelly may also be on thin ice somehow and a very public feud between trump and his own attorney general. the associated press is reporting it this way tonight, rarely has a modern president confronted so many crises and controversies across so many fronts at the same time. after 13 months in office, there's little expectation among many white house aides and outside allies that trump can quickly find his footing or attract new top flight talent to the west wing. here to talk about it with us john hileman, veteran journalist, and jonathan lemere, white house reporter for the associated press. mr. lemere, as of tonight -- first of all, you site 16 sources. so the leaking business is robust these days in washington. is there any more stability tonight than say -- let's pick a long time ago -- last night? >> no. >> continue, please. >> the people we have talked to, white house officials, aides on capitol hill, outside advisers all paint the same picture, moral in the west wing is as low as it's been in months. and they all point back to beginning with one thing, the departure of rob porter, which set off a chain reaction which has had a significant effect throughout the building. when porter left after accusations of domestic abuse by both of his ex-wives a spotlight was shone on john kelly, chief of staff, who came under extreme fire br letting porter be in the building and defending him immediately after the allegations came to light. our reporting tonight suggests that -- you may recall, it's ash wednesday and a week after the porter scandal broke, john kelly with the mark of the cross on his forehead was set to talk in the white house briefing room and give forth what was supposed to be the narrative that led to porter's dismissal. that was the same day as the school shooting in florida, there was no press briefing that day, it gave john kelly a reprieve. then security clearance shifted and it became about jared kushner and he's been in the spotlight in recent days. this moment has laid clear a rivalry of jared kushner and ivanka trump against john kelly. the president has been frustrated at times with both camps and certainly, of course, with the attorney general who's frequently his whipping boy. and now there are people in the white house who are concerned what impact hope hicks's leaving will have on the president. she's one of his closest confidants and her department on top of keith schiller a few months ago leaves the president without his sounding boards, the friendly face he likes to see in the white house. he said he misses the tight knit campaign. and the staff in the white house >> as i don't need to tell you, most of what you need to know in life is available in godfather one and two. having said that, not even family is sacred. i want to read this to you. privately, some aides have expressed frustration that mr. kushner and his wife, the president's daughter, ivanka trump, have remain at the white house despite mr. trump at times saying they never should have come to the white house and should leave. yet aides also noted that mr. trump has told the couple that they should keep serving in their roles even as he has privately asked mr. kelly for his help in moving them out. it's like hunger games. >> it's a little like the "hunger games". i don't even know what the right analogy is. it's "the hunger games" with cannibalism involved in it. i was thinking more reptiles. it's like scorpions in a really wet sock. the thing is, these -- brian, you've covered washington for a long time and you know personnel is policy. to some extent there's a feedback loop. when personnel is working right, you get good feedback. this presidency, the person and he will the policy have always been kind of messed up. so most of these, of the existing white house staff, the senior ones who are still there, there have been simmering grievances against them since the very beginning and no two more so that jared kushner and ivanka trump. now you have a fair number of senior white house people in the building. those people know how to use a telephone and they still talk to the press all the time. between the leaking that jonathan and you alluded to that's coming from inside the building, you have people -- i'm not alleging any particular person but you have steve bannon and reince priebus who saw a lot of stuff in the white house and didn't necessarily like some of the people in the white house and are taking this opportunity to -- i said on the nicole show today to strike at the head of the prince. particularly in jared kushner's case, he's so vulnerable now. the security clearance story opened the door and weakened him and now you have mueller and maybe eric schneiderman, you have the attorney general in new york, bank regulators here all circling around kushner and those who wanted him out or thought he should never be there in the first place are taking the opportunity to try to kill him. >> if people like gary cohen, say what you will about sachs, is upset about the tariffs and throws up his hands and says i'm out, how do you go out and recruit for these top positions. >> the white house before the latest round of chaos has had a difficult time bringing in experienced washington hands into the building first because so many of them were opposed to to trump during the campaign. and the staff are saying a these are people we should reconsider, the answer is no, they're perceived as disloyal so they won't get a chance to come inside the white house. there are people throughout washington throwing up their hands that in a normal administration would be thrilled to serve in the white house, but don't want to walk in because of how chaotic it is and the ongoing legal probe, the russia probe that's going on. and jared kushner, and ivanka trump, the chief of staff has been rum nating in the last week or two what do jared kushner and ivanka trump do all day? >> there were a fair numbers of individuals who knew the trump white house was going to be chaotic who decided to go in despite that in the beginning. now they've seen not the theory, now how chaotic it could be, they've seen how chaotic it is. and how the white house has chewed people up and spit people out. and the chaos has risen as the mueller investigation continues. as the net widens and tightens, you see more people in the white house -- if you're a smart republican who wants to save the cou country from chaos, you say i'm going to go in there? i saw what happened to them? why would i go in there? it's not going to work. so you have this horrible situation where people may want to serve the president. and then this other group they know what will happen to them if they go in the building, which leads you in a terrible position if you go into that administration. coming up for us, vladimir putin puts on a thoroughly russian show, positively reminiscent of the soviet era. is this really what an arms race looks like in 2018? ♪when you've got...♪ nausea, heartburn, indigestion, upset stomach, diarrhea!♪ here's pepto bismol! ah. ♪nausea, heartburn, indigestion, upset stomach, diarrhea!♪ speech before presidential elections, he is almost guaranteed to win again. he sounded lying his cold war predecessors, warning of a nuclear war. showing elaborate animations of what he called invincible nuclear weapons. like this apparently new low-flying cruise missile described as having a limitless rang an unpredictable flight path evading american missile defenses and shown targeting the united states. a and a long range underwater drone tipped with a nuclear warhead. >> i think we ought to take this very seriously. vladimir putin is a very serious leader. he has powerful scientific establishment behind him. and several of these weapons will be game changers. >> president trump seldom critical of russia didn't respond. but the white house did. >> u.s. defense capabilities are and will remain second to none. and now, because of the new defense budget of $700 million, our military will be far stronger than ever. >> to some it all har kens back to the duck and cover of the soviet arms days. >> the little threat about nuclear weapons was interesting. if ever there were an empty threat, that was it. putin saying today, nobody listened to us. it's time to listen to us now. >> so richard engel starting us off from moscow. now to our exclusive interview with vladimir putin. after his press conference today, our own megyn kelly who was on assignment in moscow sat down with the russian president. >> several analysts in the west have said this is the declaration of a new cold war. are we in a new arms race right now? >> translator: my point of view is that the individuals who said that a new cold war has started, they are not analysts. they do propaganda. if you were to speak about an arms race, then an arms race began at the time and moment when the u.s. opted out of the anti-ballistic missile treaty. >> some are suggesting that you tested it and it failed and that's why you only showed animations today and have not produced any videos. >> translator: are you talking about icbms. >> yes. the ones that you claimed makes defense systems useless. >> translator: as a matter of fact every single weapons system easily avoids an anti-missile defense system. >> you've tested it? >> translator: the test was excellent. some of them still have to be fine-tuned and work on, others are already available to the troops and already are battle ready. >> for the record, right now do you have a workable icbm that's powered by nukes that you've tested successfully? >> translator: all of those tests were successful. it is just that each is at a different stage of readiness. one is in combat duty. it is with the troops. >> so that's just a bit of their conversation. megyn kelly will have more reporting for russia in the coming days. with us tonight to talk about all of it, the author of the appropriately titled, "nuclear nightmares" rick stangle is also back with us. former under secretary of state for public affairs as well as former managing editor of time magazine who interviewed putin when he was named person of the year in '06. your latest headline were putin just gave trump the arms race he sought. what do you mean by that? >> meet the new nuclear arms race, same as the old. this is what was said in 2016. we'll beat them at every turn. we'll outlast them. he keeps harping back to this. even in his state of the union about a massive new nuclear build up. well, putin just answered him to trump's three nuclear weapons that he introduced last month, almost a month ago today, putin introduced five nuclear weapons. he is saying, bring it on. you think you can beat me? i'm your equal. and this plays into putin's hands. this is one area where they do match us weapon for weapon. >> so rick, after mutually assured destruction, isn't the rest all gravy, part one? and part two, how do you conduct diplomacy given the current relationship? we're led to believe there's russians all over the place, given the current relationship between our two presidents. >> it is bizarre. because of the trump colluding with russia and vladimir putin and yet they're at logger heads over this nuclear issue. this isn't very diplomatic but both trump and putin are like the kids in the play ground. you just dare them to do something stoop and i had you know they'll do it. both respond to dares like. that is a dangerous situation when countries are armed to the teeth with these nuclear weapons. what putin did today, whether it is new or not, and i'm more sympathetic to what condoleezza rice said. it could be a mirage. but the tone, the tenor, as joe was saying, it's an arms race. bring it on. that's not good for humanity. >> what about the point i just made about mutually assured destruction? what if all they have is peace computer graphics? what if our guys know exactly what they have or don't have? >> there's an underlying insanity about this. we both have about 4,500 nuclear weapons. more than enough to destroy each other, more than enough to destroy human life on this planet, and yet we keep building more. we keep having arguments. each one believes that they're responding to the other. so you heard putin, he's responding to our withdraw from the abm treaty back in 2002. you heard trump, he thinks he's responding to the new introduction of nuclear weapons by putin. in washington, nuclear hawks are already using this speech as a justification for a massive build up of our missile defense system. so yes. you remember, we have enough weapons to just bounce the rubble and we keep building them. >> and, rick, this is also what we mean when we talk about robust intelligence around the world, living in the time of the only president directly at war with the intelligence establishments. americans have to hope someone in the art department putting together those graphics is on the home team and someone who is one of their defense contractors is on the home team. that's what we're left to here. >> yes. i would hope and believe the intelligence community in the u.s. has an understanding of whether some of these things have been tested, whether they've been able to measure that. the one possible silver lining, the treaty. if this is a cry for let's get back to the negotiating table, and supposedly that early conversation putin had with trump, he brought up the abm treaty and trump rebuffed him, i would say get back to the table and start talking. as joe said, we have way too many of these and we need divest ourselves. >> there you go. thinking like a normal person again. >> two of our favorites. we'll have you on again. coming up, from guns to tariffs, aides and fellow republicans scramble to say what this president meant to say for the second straight day. we're back with that after this. i have to wait until i'm 21 to get a handgun but i can get this weapon at 18. so i'm curious as to what you did in your bill. >> we didn't address it, mr. president. >> because you're afraid of the nra, right? take the firearms first and then go to court. that's another system. a lot of times, by the time you go to court, it takes so long to go to court, to get the due process procedures. i like taking guns early. >> those comments from president trump stunned republicans in congress as he steamed take a position on gun control to the left of any liberal. and today another shock where trump announced the united states would impose tariffs on steel and aluminum imports. the announced surprised republicans in congress, his chief economic adviser, even his own chief of staff, most of whom had been strongly discouraging that idea. as "the washington post" summed it up today, trump often likes to sow misdirection. running the white house like a never ending reality show where only he knows the plot. even by his standards, the day long period that ended thursday left senior aides and republican lawmakers wondering whether the white house had finally come unmoored. with us, long time republican strategist mike murphy. he's currently living in the witness protection program. mike worked with john mccain, in addition to another gop candidates. so mike, the nra for years has as a fund-raising tool, some version of, they're coming to get your guns. they've put out ads like this one. it was especially prevalent during the obama presidency. so then the president goes there yesterday. then the president tweeted tonight about a good, if not great, meeting with the nra in the oval office. so after the nra regained consciousness did they go to straighten out the president in the white house? >> i'm not sure what happened in that meeting. the nra has become a business. whipping up a membership to raise money. and they have been politically effective. part of it is because there are a lot of people in america who vote a strong second amendment line. where are we now? maybe the country's consciousness is moving a little bit. there are some conservative republicans who are very concerned about it. you have leadership from guys like pat toomey, who could get something to pass. but i think the president really did throw a curve ball when he was vamping in that meeting all over the place. i'm sure they're scrambling in springfield at nra headquarters to figure out what to do about it. >> what are mcconnell and ryan doing these days? what is it like to be them these days? >> i'm sure they're scrambling to figure out what to do about it. i was talking to people today, trump critics like me from my fellow republicans is, quit the pearl clutching. ignore the tweets and the boarish behavior. look at the output of the machine of the administration, tax cuts, good judges, victories against isis, regulatory relief we never dreamed of. the machine is doing fine. they've got him under control. ignore the optics. but now we see the machine starting to fall apart because the white house has turned into the thunder dome. or cell block at reichers island, or they go there for peace and quiet by comparison. and we start seeing policy, erratic behavior from the republican orthodoxy point of view. this stupid tariff tax on steel which is not in the republican play book. we're free traders. so now we've had the kind of things that he's done, tweets threatening to do things that scare republicans, actually being done for the first time in economic policy. that has created fear. layer that on top of the fact, it is an election year. the polling numbers are bad and getting worse. so republican fear maybe the machine argument they've all been using, it would fall apart, has a lot of people very spooked. and deserveedly so. >> you touched on this. this may be part of your job in the coming months. how do you cheer up the home team for the mid-term elections in '18? >> well, the good thing about being in an undisclosed location, they don't often bring me in the room because i'm not sure i would get out alive. behind the scenes, more agree with me than not frankly, in the professional ranks of the republican party. i think they'll be trapped into doing, there it is a hard strategy trying to change the subject to localize things and to go on the attack against democratic points. some may be of the bernie sanders ilk. but it's tough. it's going to be hard not to be a referendum on the president. if he keeps making policy moves, not just rhetoric like, this crazy steel tariff, he will split the party and that will only weaken our position which is in peril. and we haven't even talked about robert mueller for four and a half entire minutes. mike murphy you're always good about coming on with us. we'll have you back. >> thank you. >> coming up, short of the president, he's the man we talk about the most on this broadcast. night in and night out. and yet could you identify the voice of robert mueller? tonight we hear from the man at the center of so much these days, when "the 11th hour" continues. they would put these signs on the door to let the teacher know you didn't cut off the light. the teachers, they would call us the energy patrol. so they would be like, here they come, turn off your lights! those three young ladies were teaching the whole school about energy efficiency. we actually saved $50,000. and that's just one school, two semesters, three girls. together, we're building a better california. normally any time we mention the name robert mueller around here it's a triggering event. it triggers this, a string of video images that you're looking at right now. we air some form of this same thing every night, based only upon our own video loop, you'd be forgiven for thinking that all robert mueller does is wake up in the morning and find a hallway to walk down purposefully and with a serious looking massive briefcase before turning in for the night. we, of course, know that he is so much more than that. he played three sports in prep school, soccer, lacrosse and hockey and was captain of all three teams. he's a decorated, wounded vietnam veteran who left the mari marine corpse with a bronze star and purple heart, when to princeton, only j. edgar hoover -- we mention his name multiple times every night on this broadcast and yet would you know his voice if you've ever heard it? have you ever heard him speak? so we looked through his public remarks and we put together something for you. and as you listen, as you hear him speak, listen to the principles of this man who occupies an enormous role right now in our democracy. >> i care deeply about the rule of law. in a free society, a central responsibility of government, i believe, is to protect its citizens from criminal harm within the framework of the constitution. i have been fortunate indeed to have been able to spend much of my career in pursuit of that goal. what has never changed and will never change are our values. we have pledged to serve and to protect our nation and to do so while upholding the rights and the liberties guaranteed to every citizen under the constitution. >> i've always been proud to say that i worked for the department of justice because of that for which it stands, which is an unyielding commitment to the rule of law and to the safety and security of the citizens we serve. >> in the end it is not only what we do but how we do it. whatever we do, we must act with honesty and with integrity and regardless of your chosen career, you are only as good as your word. you can be smart, aggressive, articulate, indeed persuasive, but if you are not honest, your reputation will suffer and once lost, a good reputation can never, ever be regained. as the saying goes, if you have integrity nothing else matters and if you do not have integrity, nothing else matters. >> robert swann mueller in his own words tonight. when we come back after a break, it sometimes takes a sense of humor to serve in this white house, as the chief of staff showed us today. [ applause ] >> truly, six months, the last thing i wanted to do was walk away from one of the great honors of my life being the secretary of homeland security, but i did something wrong and god punished me i guess. >> in airing those remarks from kelly earlier today, we've been airing only the briefest snippet of the event itself. just that much on television to show the stage, but there on the stage with kelly is someone we should note and that's tom ridge, the very first secretary of homeland security, former congressman, former pennsylvania governor. like robert mueller, a bronze star recipient from the vietnam war. tom ridge had the kind of heart attack you don't want to have. it happened in an austin hotel room back in november and he woke up six days later having flatlined three times. medics had pounded his chest so