Gets under way on a thursday night. Well, good evening once again from our nbc news headquarters here in new york. Day 595 of the Trump Administration and the president s lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, told the Associated Press tonight that President Trump will not answer Robert Muellers questions in writing or in person on the subject of obstruction of justice. But earlier tonight, giuliani told nbc news obstruction questions are not ruled in or out. Well have much more on this and an attempt to sort it out in just a moment. But first, President Trump just wrapped up a rally way out west far from the troubled atmosphere inside his own west wing. If its thursday, it must be billings, montana, where tonight they heard the president attack the anonymous official from his own administration who wrote that surprising and scathing oped yesterday in the New York Times. The latest act of resistance is the oped published in the failing New York Times by an anonymous really an anonymous, gutless coward. You just look. He was nobody knows who the hell he is, or she. They put he. That probably means its a little disguise. That means its she. But for the sake of our National Security, the New York Times should publish his name at once. I think their reporters should go and investigate who it is. That would actually be a good scoop. That would be a good scoop. Unelected deep state operatives who defy the voters to push their own secret agendas are truly a threat to democracy itself. The New York Times is reporting tonight that the white house has a list of suspects and ideas are being floated to catch the author. Quote, senator rand paul of kentucky, an ally of mr. Trumps, recommended that the president force members of his administration to take polygraph examinations and there was at least briefly some discussion of that among advisers to the president. Another option mentioned by people close to mr. Trump was asking senior officials to sign sworn affidavits that could be used in court, in necessary. One outside adviser said the white house had a list of about 12 suspects. Meanwhile, many close to the president are racing to say it was not them and to put as much distance between them and the oped as possible. So far more than two dozen Administration Officials have denied they are the author of the piece as the white house searches for what they call the anonymous, gutless coward. And today a new report from axios says there are plenty of white house officials working in that, quote, quiet resistance. Quote, two senior Administration Officials reached out to axios to say the author stole the words right out of their mouths. Quote, i find the reaction to the New York Times oped pass nating, that people seem so shocked there is a resistance from inside, one senior official said. A lot of us were wishing we had been the writer. I suspect, i hope trump knows, maybe he does, that there are dozens and dozens of us. First Lady Melania Trump also weighed in today after beginning her statement by saying, free press is important to our democracy. The first lady continued to write in part, if a person is bold enough to accuse people of negative actions, they ave a responsibility to publicly stand by their words and people have a right to be able to defend themselves. To the writer of the oped, you are not protecting this country, you are sabotaging it with your cowardly actions. White House Press SecretarySarah Huckabee sanders ramped up her attacks on the New York Times today by releasing a phone number for the newspaper. She told people on twitter, if they want to know the author of the oped, ask the times. Jonathan lemire of the Associated Press has new reporting tonight on the president s reaction to all of this, quote, trump was incensed about the column. Calling around to confidants to find out about the author, solicit guesses to his or her identity and fumed that a deep state within the administration was conspireing against him. He ordered aides to unmask the writer. As striking as the essay was, the long list of officials who could plausibly be its author is striking. Many have shared the articles same concerns about trump with colleagues, friends and reporters, so goes the reporting of the Associated Press tonight. With that, lets bring in our leadoff panel on a thursday not. The aforementioned Jonathan Lemire. Nancy cook, White House Reporter for politico. Eli stokols, White House Reporter for the New York Times. We welcome all three back to the broadcast. Mr. Lemire, trump went on a rant out in montana tonight. Of note on social media, his pronunciation of anonymous. Also talking about lincolns gettysburg address. He said many of us know it by memory. That was notable. Went on a rant about impeachment, almost treating himself as a disassociated thirdperson character of it. What does it say about what you know to be his state of mind . He also suggested that lincoln and the gettysburg address was something that was not too popular at the time like his speeches. Like his speeches. As the decades went on, it was seen more favorably. He predicted the same for himself so he made the lincoln comparison. Certainly this is a moment where impeachment or certainly crisis is on the mind of the president and people closest to him. He is, in our reporting, very much in a bunker mentally right now. He is not sure who he can trust. He believes its not just perhaps the mythical deep state that has been there in place before he arrived, but even some of his closest advisers have been working perhaps against him. This oped comes on the heels of the woodward book. They seem to be very much the same theme, the president getting in the way of the president , trying to stop him, get in between him, his worst impulses, perhaps, and the american people. This is a remarkable scene today where we had some of his cabinet members, some senior aides, even the Vice President falling all over this. Had to go out there publicly on the record say it wasnt me. I didnt write this. A number of them threw in a bunch of attacks on the media to sort of further please the audience of one watching in the oval office. The white house certainly is trying to sort out who did this. You know, the president is, you know, our reporting is absolutely incensed, he fuming, talking to confidants. He believes there is nobody he can trust. Casting doubt perhaps on some members of his own family that they have been too leaky with reporters at times. The question now is, does this go beyond just asking press secretary sanders and chief of staff kelly to sort of ask around and see whats going on . Does he call for some formal governmental inquiry into this, something Rudy Giuliani told me tonight he believes would be appropriate but i suspect that would set off alarm bells throughout washington. Try all of this, how did the trump agenda advance today is always our question. Nancy, i saw in your notes somebody in the west sing said to you, honestly, it could be anybody. What did you learn today . I think from a Staff Perspective there are a few different points. One is people feel like it could be so many people in the administration, you know, its hard to just narrow it down to a dozen or ten people because there are so many people who entered into the white house not necessarily being loyal to trump but they wanted to bolster their resume or sort of further a personal ideology they had but they didnt really support the campaign. Then secondly, i feel like there is a real heightened sense of paranoia right now inside the white house. People are very worried after omero sas book that people are taping conversations, that anyone could be stabbed in the back at any time by their colleagues. Theyre worried that, you know, stories about them will end up in a tellall book. There is just this real sense that you cant trust anyone, and i think that goes from the president all the way down to, you know, aides throughout the west wing and even throughout the agencies. Eli stokols, Interesting Times at the New York Times. They made news themselves about a week ago when they suddenly removed the bylines from the front page so we cant look for the writing from our favorite writers and reporters, and now this consequential decision, which must have come out of, i assume, several rounds of talks and assurances, what do you make the times of this, obviously visavis the woodward book, which is yet to go on sale, lets remember, and the Supreme Court hearings on the hill. Do you think they are related and coordinated . Well, i have no reason to think that. Just listening to what the editorial page they werent thinking about some sort of onetwo punch or overshadowing the kavanaugh hearings. They found something they thought was newsworthy. They made a controversial decision to publish an anonymous oped and here we are. I think the interesting thing is everybody is searching for playing this parlor game, trying to figure out who done it. I think you have to step back and ask yourself, why not . As john and nancy have talked about, a lot of our sources inside the west wing, people who talk to the press a lot, have expressed similar frustrations and similar characterizations of this west wing as we read in that oped. The question is, why not somebody decided to go out and poke the bear by putting this out publicly, even if theyre not putting their name on it. They knew it would get a reaction. And i think what it tells you is that after the last couple of weeks, after we see the sdny investigation continuing, thats an existential threat to this president. You have the poll numbers going down, the election getting closer, the Mueller Probe perhaps nearing an end stage. And i think you have a lot of people in this white house sort of thinking more long term and considering there could be an end game coming into play before long, and i think that the fact that somebody decided to send this to the New York Times now, the timing of it is almost as interesting as if we were to figure out who actually wrote it. And then this happened this afternoon. Lets all gather round and listen to Steve Schmidt, whose anger and disgust over trump has led him to leave a lifelong membership in the republican party, a veteran of republican politics. He on the 4 00 p. M. Hour with his colleagues here in the studio talked about the way he views this president. Well talk about it on the other side. This is an hour of national emergency. It is evidenced by his behavior every day. It is evidenced by the bob woodward book and the other corroborating stories. It is evidenced by that oped and by what actual white house officials are saying to United States senators. From durbin to sasse to corker, nobody seems capable of understanding the grave peril and dangers the nation, the republic and the world are in from this violent, corrupt man who is indecent, assaulting our institutioning, unraveling the liberal global order and by account after account after account is phycologically unfit to hold any position of public trust. Well, Jonathan Lemire, he went and said it. The question is about the disconnect. What percentage of americans does Steve Schmidt speak for right there and do you see any migration, any Movement Among republicans in washington . Steve schmitt always brings it. He does. There hasnt been much migration yet. I mean, there have been we saw bob corker speak out and sort of suggest that he agreed with some of the leaving the senate. Thats right. That is what we see time and time again, is that the only republicans who are willing to stand up and speak back to this president are those who are not going to face voters again because theyve been term limited out or not seeking reelection or in john mccains case, they are greatly ill. Most republicans have given the president cover and suggested this was inappropriate, this author should have put their name on it or resigned. This person shouldnt be working here. You played the clip earlier about rand paul suggesting they should take investigative steps to sort out who this is. Paul ryan today did say he didnt think it was the houses job to be part of this inquiry. But mark meadows, a longtime trump ally, said, yes, it should be. There has not been a sea change yet. Certainly my a. P. Colleague in montana tonight spoke to a few people in the crowd there at the trump rally. No one there seemed to care about this oped. That wasnt what was on their mind. Obviously these are trump supporters, but if they viewed it at all, the suggestion was it was just another effort to try to undermine this president. That hes doing a good job. Thats what they care about. They dont care about some oped from some career bureaucrat appearing in the New York Times. Though the president is concerned and those around him are concerned, its not clear to me, at least yet, there is going to be any kind of sea change around him. Nancy cook, two kinds of guessing games under way. Number one, where is the denial to all the assertions in the oped . Number two, where does the guessing game stand as to who wrote this . Well, its interesting to me, as you said that people in the white house arent really denying the substance of the oped. There is not a lot of denial of the substance of the woodward book, which makes it seems a lot of senior officials in the white house baby sit trump and pull papers off his desk. What theyre trying to do is attack the credibility of woodward and in this case make the New York Times a foil to trump. Thats really the strategy at this point but theyre not really getting to the substance. In terms of the guessing game, you know, it really depends on who you talk to. People have mentioned a lot of i think people in the white house definitely feel like its someone at a federal agency and theyre trying to convince trump that its someone in an agency and someone lowlevel. People i talk to feel like it could be a wide swath of people, including some of the people who issued denials today. Youll see even in the past where there have been people where, you know, there have been Anonymous Sources like deep throat with watergate. Mark felt who was deep throat denied it on the record he was for many years until he came out with it. Eli, a question that between them Steve Schmitt and any number of our other contributors ask almost on a daily basis ill ask you. What will it take to see migration in the republican ranks . It may take the midterms, but that may not even do it if republicans lose the house. I was asking that question to a lot of republicans on the hill today, and they say we just have to get through one of them just said we have to get through the next two years. Its going to be ugly. The house democrats, if they take over a majority there are going to do a lot of impeachment, a lot of hearings, there are going to be a lot of investigations and they just have to brace for it because they know if thats the case, donald trump retaliating and reacting to that wont be pretty either. Although i did ask them, where is that line . You talk to these people and they say they may not like trumps behavior, they may recognize the dangers he poses to the democracy itself but theyre caught between the base and their principles and wanting to stay in their in office. So what do they do . They adhere to the base. They accept and they celebrate the policies, tax reform, the conservative judges, the things that they are getting from the Trump Presidency and they look the other way on the other things. I asked, i said when does that change, when does that converge to the point where your concerns about trump and the country start to become bigger than the conservative policy agenda items youre checking off . And the person who i asked that to today, a pretty highranking person in the senate said, you know what, i dont know when we get there but those lines are getting closer. There is movement and people are starting to ask those questions, at least privately. Interesting. The big three on a thursday night starting us off. Jonathan lemire, eli cook, nancy stokols. Coming up, President Trumps lawyer declares mueller questions about obstruction of justice a nogo and then says he still might. And later, the insurrection from some Senate Democrats during day three of judge kavanaughs Supreme Court confirmation hearing. The 11th hour just Getting Started on the aforementioned thursday night. With a range of suvs perfect for any adventure, you can be in your element, in any element. Experience amazing at your lexus dealer. Lets fly, lets fly away just say the words and well beat the birds down to acapulco bay its perfect for a flying honeymoon they say come fly with me lets fly, lets fly away come fly with me lets fly, lets fly away does it look like im done . Yet . Shouldnt you be at work . [ mockingly ] shouldnt you be at work . Todd. Hold on. [ engine revs ] arcade game fist pump your real bikes all fixed. Man, you guys are good well, we are the numberone motorcycle insurer in the country. Wait. You have a real motorcycle . And real insurance, with 24hour customer support. Arcade game wipeout oh well. I retire as champi