With scott pruitt has to do with the upper Level Staffing at epa. When fox News Reporter ed henry interviewed scott pruitt, that was the part, that staffing part was where they got into their biggest fight. Why did you go around the president and the white house to give pay raises to two staffers . I did not. My staff did. I found out about yesterday and i changed. Is somebody be fired for that . A career person or political person . I dont know. You run the agency. You dont know who did this in. I found out about this yesterday and i corrected the action. We are in the process of finding out how it took place hang on. Both of these staffers that got the large pay raises are friends of your from oklahoma, right . Theyre staffers theyre friends of yours. You didnt know they got the large pay raises . I did not know they got the pay raises until yesterday. One got a pay raise of 28,000. The other was 567,000. Do you kn 57,000. So one of your friend got a pay raise of the median they did not get a pay raise. I stopped it yesterday. Are you embarrassed . It should not have happened. And the officials involved in that process should not have done what they did. I love the part where he says theyre staffers here so hang on, theyre friends of yours from oklahoma, right . Theyre staffers here in the agency, and then scott pruitt says, they serve a very important person. Theyre his staff. So, yes, they do serve a very important person. But the substance of that public explanation from epa administrator scott pruitt is he had no idea about these big pay raises, 30 tuesday, 50,000 pay raises. That went to his staffers. We later found out that the money for those pay raises came from the Safe Drinking Water act, which it is in the law that an administrator can do that because the epa is supposed to be able to hire engineers and scientific experts quickly to respond to Drinking Water emergencies. That is not what scott pruitt used that money for. Hes saying publicly he had no idea how this happened, he only found out about it in the press this week, it was news to him. He definitely didnt do it himself. He says hes not even sure who might have done it but when he figures it out, theyll be in trouble. The Washington Post reports he not only knew about the pay raises for his staffers, he signed off on it himself. Three Trump Administration officials confirming that he endorsed the idea last month of giving substantial pay raises to two of his news staffers. According to this multsource t week we talked about this amazing trip to morocco. He took seven staffers with hm, including one of the oklahoma staffers he gave a giant raise to. He brought seven staffers plus the security detail. The Associated Press reports just within the past couple of hours that prosecute security detail was, we now know, a multimillion dollar affair. According to new documents reviewed by the Associated Press, epa chief Scott Pruitts concern for his safety came at a steep cost for taxpayers as his swollen security detail blew through overtime budgets and at times diverted officers from investigating environmental crimes so those officers could instead protect him. The agency spent millions of dollars for a 20member security detail that is three times the size of his predecessors security contingent and hers was only part time. So we dont know exactly how many members of Scott Pruitts 20person fulltime Security Team got to going to morocco but it was scott pruitt, plus the staffers, plus the Security Team flying International First also a. Happily that came with a saturday night layover in paris france. We learned yesterday after the saturday night layover in paris, pruitt and company didnt show up for their connecting flight from paris to morocco. Oops. That meant another day and night in paris on the taxpayers dime. They did imagimanage to catch t flight and get down to the business of the trip. And the business of the trip was to lobby officials to change their Energy Strategy and start importing Liquified Natural Gas from the u. S. That thats not his job. Its not the job of the Environmental Protection agency to go importing natural gas. At the time of this taxpayer funded lavish trip, there was only one company at the time called cheniere, the former shoulder of cheniere, carl ac r icahn, who reportedly got Scott Pruitts job in the epa. Trump asked pruitt to seal the deal by walking two blocks north by carl icahns office. Because he had some questions before he could be green lit for the job. He got the right answers, he got green lit, he got the epa job and soon after he went to morocco and hooked up carls company with a big policy ask that had nothing to do with the epa. That is also an amazing story because the top lobbyist for Cheniere Energy is the owner of the house, the lobbyist where scott pruitt has been staying for 50 a night. One of the people on the amazeballs trip was a new hire named samantha dravis, she quit. Nobody was quite sure why when we first got word that she was quitting. But then we learned that this letter had been sent to the epaes epa epas Inspector General. Senat this letter was sent this week asking to investigate reports that the senior staffer for scott pruitt, the person who is said to be his closest aide at the agencies, there are reports she was being paid full time for that senior counsel job at the epa, even though she was not actually showing up for work for three months. According to carpers letter, she did not show up for work despite being paid full time in november and december 2017 and january 2018. If thats true, thats an amazing gig, right . If what senator carper is asking about is true, that would mean she was getting paid for a fulltime gig, and that included her getting to go on the morocco trip where she got to fly International First class to paris for the weekend and on to morocco and she got to avoid that thing when you come back and get dirty looks from your coworkers. She didnt have to deal with any of that because she actually didnt have to go to work for months. So that senior counsel again described as the closest sta staffestaff er. Scott pruitt is still in his job. Shes gone. But we have new information with the senior counsel that may show this to be an even bigger problem than its already understood to be. This information come from the committee where carper is the ranging democrat. A staffer on the committee tonight gave us some of the background of what led to this request from senator carper. Just so you know, this is exactly how carper put it. I write to request the Inspector General conduct an immediate review of the epa efforts to prevent fraud related to employee i am additionally informed that ms. Dravis was likely compensated as a fulltime employee throughout that time. Now we can report that what led to this sort of remarkable claim is that this committee, the Environment Committee in the senate, was contacted by multiple sources on this matter over a period of four to six weeks, multiple sources contacted the Committee Via calls, emails and inperson meetings, all raising the same issue about samantha drafis being the senior counsel at the epa but her not being at work. The sources are former epa political appointees, current political appointees as well as current epa staff. Were told all sources that contacted the committee expressed similar concerns. So tonight 64 democratic members of congress signed a joint statement calling on scott pruitt to resign. That was before the new reporting from the ap about the multimillion dollar security costs and before the new reporting about his senior counsel and multiple staffers including current political appointees raising the issue with the Senate Committee that oversees the epa, raising this question of whether or not dravis actually had to come to work in order to earn her senior counsel salary working for scott pruitt. Like i said, she has resigned. As of this second, scott pruitt is still in his job in Donald Trumps cabinet and stuff happens on fridays. Did you see this footage today . Its staff coming out to cheer and applaud for him as he left the white house for the final time. H. R. Mcmaster went out with this remarkable show of support from his colleagues and from white house staff today. But he is now gone. And the new National Security adviser, the president s third after mike flynn, who is awaiting sentencing and h. R. Mcmaster, the new National Security adviser, john bolton, is due to start on monday. You probably want to stick a pin in that for now because there are real questions about john bolt oon starting on monday. Real questions out of todays news. Were getting to that with Rolling Stone reporter Tim Dickinson tonight. Before we get to the substantive issue of john bolton taking this job and the question of if thats going to work, consider the immediate timeline here. When we got that footage today of mcmaster leaving and all the staff coming out and applauding and everything, that is not a show he left. Hes gone. John bolton were told is due is to start first thing monday morning. For the weekend theres no National Security adviser, i guess. Hold tight. Hold tight. Particularly because theres a lot of International Eye poking going on right now, including the president trying to start this trade war with china. You saw the markets go off a cliff today again because of that. The president of mexico has previously been pretty even keeled about president trump. Hes now making stern, nationally televised statements about the u. S. Government and the president insulting mexico and insulting mexicans. And course theres whats going on with russia and a whole bunch of really important stuff happened today when it comes to russia and thats next. Stay with us. Housands of miles . Yes. Thanks to the dedicated technicians at the american red cross. Who worked with vmware. To develop technologies to help redirect the flow of blood to the areas and people needing it most. Helping them recover. And refilling everyone with lifeaffirming hope. Magic cant make Digital Transformation happen. But we can. Thats the power of vmware, part of dell technologies. Im the one clocking in when youre clocking out. Sensing your every move and automatically adjusting to help you stay effortlessly comfortable. I can also help with this. Does your bed do that . Oh. I dont actually talk. Though im smart enough to. Im the new sleep number 360 smart bed. Lets meet at a sleep number store. During the trump era, were used to any confrontation with russia happening not so much through the u. S. Government. It more often happens through the special counsels office. Robert mueller and his team of prosecutors in the special counsels office went after russia directly for their interference in the 2016 president ial election when in february they indicted 13 russians, including a billionaire Russian Oligarch, who putin gave all the catering contracts for all the Russian Military and russian schools. They call him putins chef. Robert mueller straight up indicted that guy in february. Those indictments ended up becoming the basis for the first significant u. S. Government sanctions against russia for interference in the election. Mueller picked those targets, na named them and literally brought indictments against them. Since then, Robert Mueller hasnt just charged, he also secured his first prison sentence in the russia scandal for a dutch lawyer who speaks fluent russian. He is the soninlaw of another Russian Oligarch, who is close to putin. Neither alex van der zwaan we learned mueller and his prosecutors have been stopping Russian Oligarchs at u. S. Airports, including searching the Electronic Devices of an oligarch when he landed in the u. S. In a private plane. Up until today, it kind of been the special counsels office thats been responsible in the United States for punching back at russia on behalf of the american hepeople, whose electi was interfered with by russia in the election in 2016 in some ways that have been quite provocative. Now today on h. R. Mcmastmaster last day, the Treasury Department designates a realist. They couldnt exclusively say it, dont upset the president. Whether or not that preamble matters in terps of its exact verbiage, the list they put out for the enough sanctions is aggressive. It includes putins soninlaw, who he set up with billions worth of shares in former live staterun entities when he married putins daughter several years ago and it sanctions the head of a key source of energy to western europe. There a couple of people on the list whose sanctions experts and russian experts describe monot just as obvious choices but clever choices, for example, there are sanctions against igor rotenberg. His dad and uncle have been given gigantic construction and building projecontracts. The contracts are usually very large and very well padded. His dad and uncle were both put on the very strict sanctions, u. S. And european sanctions list in 2014. That happened after russia invaded crimea. When igors dad and uncle got sanctioned in 2014, they transferred all of their assets and their companies to the kid. They just gave everything to igor. Theyre still believed to materially control all these assets but igor is not sanctioned so put everything on him. Today igor is the one who got sanctioned. Now both him and his dad and his uncle are all in a position where his assets are not stripped but theyre quite internationally constrained. Two last things to know about this. First, the person who appears to be hardest hit by these sanctions today is somebody who is a very familiar figure from the russia scandal. And in particular the scandal surrounded indicted Trump Campaign chairman paul manafort. His name is Oleg Deripaska. Hes a very, very rich Russian Oligarch close to putin. He runs the biggest Aluminum Manufacturing concern anywhere in the world outside of china. He was sanctioned personally today. On top of that, there are 12 oligarchcontrolled companies that got sanctioned today. Of the 12, eight of them are companies controlled by Oleg Deripaska. Hes singled out. Hes become well known to us in the United States because of his longstanding business dealings with Trump Campaign chair paul manafort, who is now awaiting trial on multiple felonies. The a. P. Reported in march of last year that in 2006 manafort signed a 10 million a Year Contract with deripaska to promote the interest of putins government in the United States and around the world. Manafort denies he ever did that but the a. P. Stood by that reporting. Court record indicate beyond that 10 million a your contract, they tried multiple Business Ventures together. I say tried because part of the way we know that is that deripaska has sued manafort in multiple jurisdictions trying to get back millions of dollars that he says manafort stole from him while he thought they were doing business together. Then in the past year, the atlantic magazine turned up information. Manafort emailed a business associate of his own asking if Oleg Deripaska had seen the press clippings about manafort becoming Trumps Campaign chair. He asked if there was some way he could use that to get whole with Oleg Deripaska. He offered private briefings on the campaign to deripaska. Manaforts business associates, someone who prosecutors assess as having current ties to russian intelligence, then emailed to say he spent five hours meeting with deripaska and had several important messages from deripaska that he needed to deliver in person to manafort. He said those messages concerned the future of his country, meaning deripaskas country, meaning russia. So manafort and his business associate then met up in new york in early august 2016 to discuss whatever those messages were from Oleg Deripaska. At the time manafort was Trumps Campaign manager. Well, deripaska is now sanctioned by the u. S. Government, and his Business Empire has just had an anville dropped on it by these sanctions today. And he is close to putin and nobody knows how the russian government is going to respond to this. They say theyre going to respond in kind but theres no russian equivalent to locking multibillionaires out of the u. S. Economy, not when your country is economically weak as russia is. They have an economy the size of italy. In part because its so corrupt. So nobody knows what russia means when they say theyre going to retaliate in kind. Hopefully they wont do anything until we get a new National Security adviser in place on monday morning. Russia doesnt work weekends, do they . Thats all before we get to the other big problem with the new sanctions list, which is a problem for the new guy who was supposed to start as National Security on monday. And that story will curl your hair and thats coming up. Stay with us. This is the ocean. Just listen. vo theres so much we want to show her. We needed a car that would last long enough to see it all. avo subaru outback. Ninety eight percent are still on the road after 10 years. Come on mom, lets go alright, i brought in high protein to help get us moving. And help you feel more strength and energy in just two weeks ill take that. Yeeeeeah ensure high protein. With 16 grams of protein and 4 grams of sugar. Ensure. Always be you. Im not really a, i thought wall street guy. Ns. Whats the hesitation . Eh, it just feels too complicated, you know . You know, at Td Ameritrade, we can walk you through your options trades step by step until youre comfortable. I could be up for that. Stepbystep options trading support from Td Ameritrade the nra has 5 million members. We work with everyone both in the United States and of course here in russia. There are no people more alilik americans than russians. We need to work together. No peoples are more alike than the americans and the russia russians. Nra president david keene. That happened during a visit when david keene and other officials traveled to moscow to attend a conference by a group called the right to bare arms. Its a group founded by putins Political Party called united russia. They dont actually support gun rights in russia. So why did they create this group that purports to promote that . A Deputy Governor of the russian central bank, a close ally of vladimir putin, a Ranking Member of his party, started this Gun Rights Group in russia. They didnt actually do much to promote gun rights in russia, at all. They also named themselves the right to bear arms, which has a lot more resonance in the english language than they did in russian, they started making lots and lots of connections to the american nra. Alexander, w torshin started cultivating ties with russia and attending nra yearly conferences in the u. S. , they met can top u. S. Officials, cultivated friendships, they sought out Republican Party introductions whenever they could and they twice got senior nra officials and nraaffiliated celebrities to come visit russia, all expenses paid as guests of this putin affiliated, fake Gun Rights Group that wasnt actually promoting gun rights in russia. Among the u. S. Officials who personally promoted this Russian Group is john bolton, who is supposed to start on monday as National Security adviser. Here he is as youve never seen him before with russian subtitles. Thank you for this opportunity to address the russian people on the 20th anniversary of the adoption of the russian constitution. Today youre engaged in an historic debate about the possible expansion of your freedoms. Should the russian people have the right to bear arms . Theyre not actually engaged in that debate. Vladimir putin and his Political Party do not believe people should have the right to bear arms. They appear to have been doing so for effect on an american audience. They were trying to cultivate ties between the american political right and putins government. Mcclatchy reports the fbi is investigating whether this group and Alexander Torshin used this relationship they belt with the nra to funnel foreign cash into the United States. And that is awkward for john bolton on monday if that is an active counterintelligence fbi investigation. All of these are part of a new article in Rolling Stone called the the decades long Russian Campaign toily fill trait the nra and help elect trump. They believe russian interests masked a dark ulterior motive. Steven hall told the magazine, quote, the idea of private gun ownership is anathema to putin. Mcclatchy reported that the fbi is investigating whether any nra money went to help trump through what appears to be this russian op targeting the nra. The nra spent a record 55 million on the 2016 election. Thats triple what they spent on the previous president ial election. Central to that reported fbi investigation is the head of the fake russian Gun Rights Group, Alexander Torshin. The nra has grudgingly admitted to taking foreign money but they say they dont do so for election purposes. The one foreign donation the nra has admitted to in the middle of this controversy is a 1,000 payment from Alexander Torshin for his own personal life membership in the nra. They say thats the only russian money they that its just well, Alexander Torshin finds himself unable to enter the United States or attend any nra conferences or do businesses with any of his american friends because hes been named on the list of 17 top officials sanctioned by the government because of russias interference in our election in 2016. Will our new adviser john bolton have to ask for his video back. Joining us, the author of this article in the Rolling Stone. Mr. Dickinson, thank you for joining us. I think one of the things that been missing in this talk about torshin is how big a figure he was in the russian senate. He was their number two and briefly rose to be their acting chairman. He was briefly Mitch Mcconnell essentially. And torshin was there in 2014 when russia was officially annexing crimea. He appeared at the signing ceremony with vladimir putin. This guy is a big deal in russian politics, far apart from any of the scandal were talking about. There was a plausible reason to sanction him back in 2014. Other high level officials were sanctioned then. The question this raises for me is why no, why is he getting targeted now . And Steven Mnuchin talked in pretty broad terms about russias maligned influence, including its interference in western elections. It seemed to me that i think the right question is does someone in the administration have other information that has come to light that makes this person of Significant Interest now to be seeking to punish . And on the why question here, i think if we can agree that it would be unnatural to the point of impossible to impossible to exist in nature, that there could be a putinsupported russian Gun Rights Group that was going to aggressively promote gun rights in russia and private gun ownership in russia the way the nra does here, if we can set aside the possibility thats actually what that group is for, is it clear to you from what you understand about the investigations here what exactly they were after in cult vaivati the nra this hard, in running what appears to be an op to get visits on both sides, cultivate friendships and turn it into relationships with american politicians. What was it all about . We dont have all the information. Having gone back through years and years of social media posts, just extensive research, what youre describing is absolutely right. What we see is a sophisticated influence campaign where torshin and his protege are seeking to open the nra as a conduit to do russias bidding in american politics. The Nra Conventions and reciprocated on the other side in moscow, in america they become a conduit to meet people like david keene, all roads of conservatism lead through this guy. Hes one of the most connected guys in washington and is likely the reason that john bolton appeared in this video, the only public discussion we had is that david keen asked bolton to record this video for his friends in russia and bolton unwittingly agreed, which is the story weve heard about this. But it speaks to the depth and success of this effort to open these doors and pathways. What this allowed was for torshin to in 2016 to back channel operative, paul eriksson, to extend an invitation to the Trump Campaign to try to broker a meeting between putin and trump. So this is the pathway that was opened, the level of communication that was opened. Torshin claimed he met trump personally in 2015 and met at the Nra Convention in 2016 in louisville where trump received the endorsement of the group. He met with the president s son just weeks before the infamilou trump tower meeting. And torshin receives an infamous medal from the Successor Organization to the kgb. Maybe this is just a Lifetime Achievement medal but it gives the impression this is a reward for something much more current. Like when we saw kislyak come back to moscow, they basically crowd surfed him from st. Petersburg to moscow. Meanwhile the nra guy is getting the medal. Go back to 2012. Torshin, an observer of the 2012 election between obama and romney. Hes thinking about american politics deeply at that point. After that trip, he visits nra headquarters and sergei kislyak. Whats going on here . I expect on some level the nra got the wool pulled over its eyes here. What were left to understand is that there may have been a way for the russians to steer money through the nra without the nra necessarily be aware. They should probably be aware now with the sanctioning the torshin. Tim kidickinson, congratulation on this story. Thank you for joining us tonight. Last night took a l, but tonight i bounce back. Whats an l . The rap singer took a loss and now hes ok again. Right. Yeah you can get a mortgage that avoids pmi, but theres no way to avoid mip on. Hey thisll help. Rocket mortgage by quicken loans makes the complex simple. So, origination fees. This takes care of it, thank you. Understand the details and get approved in as few as 8 minutes. By americas largest mortgage lender. Bounce back, right right right, i get it now. I woke up in beast mode, with my girl thats. Booking a flight doesnt have to be expensive. Just go to priceline. Its the best place to book a flight a few days before my trip and still save up to 40 . Just tap and go. For the best savings on flights, go to priceline. We had some breaking news at the top of the hour tonight, news that multiple, current staffers of the epa, including career staffers and Trump Administration political appointees have come forward to the committee that has oversight over the epa to complain to that committee that embattled epa administrator scott pruitt hired a senior staffer at the agency for what was essentially a noshow job, according to these whistleblower epa employees who have come forward to the senate Environment Committee. The allegation is that a senior staffer working for scott pruitt was hired for a job that came with full pay but no responsibility to actually go to work for what is reported to be a threemonth period. Weve got more on that breaking news coming up. Stay with us. E triple threat of, e triple threat of, lurking crabgrass and weak, thin grass introducing the all new scotts turf builder triple action. This singlestep breakthrough changes everything. It kills weeds, prevents crabgrass for up to 4 months, and feeds so grass can thrive, all guaranteed. Only from scotts. Our backyard is back. This is a scotts yard. It was one of the weirdest con jobs you have ever heard about in government, the kind of thing you cant believe somebody actually pulled off, particularly for as long as this dude did. His name was john biel, worked for the epa for over 20 years, a leading being pert on climate change. While he was doing that expert work, he was pretending to be moonlighting as a cia agent. For more than ten years, john beal told his epa supervisors, im going to need time off because ive got highly secret work to do for the cia. Apparently everybody just believed him. They apparently really believed he was involved in some covert operation and so best not to call too much attention to it by calling anybody and checking it out. It started as a few days here and there for my secret operations and then it turned into a sixmonth stretch where john beal didnt show up to work at all. Then it was an 18monthlong stretch where he, again, just didnt show up to work and the epa was apparently fine with it. They kept paying hill. He kept getting paid and he kept getting promoted. He ended up becoming the highest paid official at the epa. At the end, he was getting paid more than the head of the epa. What did he say he did with all the time once he got caught . He said he was, quote, working around the house, riding his bicycle and reading books. Basically hes my hero. He was eventually caught, he pled guilty in 2013 to defrauding the u. S. Government for 13 million and sentenced to a lot of years in prison. But it apparently boggles my mind that he could pull off something of that magnitude for as long as he did. Those adventures are back in the news because of news that among epa administrator Scott Pruitts mounting pile of scandals is word that multiple epa staffers, career staffers and trump political appointees have apparently come forward over a period of four to six weeks, by phone, email and inperson meetings, theyve come forward to alert the Senate Committee that has oversight over the epa that there is nor scannanother f this type at the epa, another senior noshow staffer, a senior counselor to scott pruitt, said to be the closest aide to scott pruitt at the agency. She has resigned over the past week but according to these staffers, she was allegedly being paid full time, even though she wasnt turning up at work for months at a time for threes months between november and january. Joining us is chris lue. Thank you very much for being here. This is a weird story. It is a weird story but its part and parcel of a culture of anything goes. Weve seen with pruitt the excess of spending, the first class travel, the salaries that he gave to a couple of his officials. So when you have a culture of misconduct, this is not surprising at all. When you were managing the cabinet in the Obama Administration, if you got word of some alleged scandal involving not necessarily the administrator him or herself, but senior staff, Something Weird about some hiring, money was paid to augment somebodys salary radically where it looks like thats not where the money should have come from, an allegation of a noshow job, is that something you would expect the administrator to fix, the cabinet to fix or is that something that the white house my get involved . We in the Obama Administration all salary increases had to be cleared by the white house. And thats to ensure theres parity not only within the agency but across agencies as well. So whether it was scrutinizing trips, spending all of these things came to the white house because we had the tone of ethics. Because president obama set that tone. Youve got donald trump, who frankly not only is indifferent to ethics but has been frankly blatantly hostile to it. They clearly havent set up the processes to check these kinds of abuses. On the staffing issue, the large raises we were discussing, the way thats been reported out, and i should say that scott pruitt denies knowing about it, denies having signed off on it. The way its being reported out is it looks like the white house in this case may have not cleared some of the people he wanted to hire and therefore, the administrator, scott pruitt decided with the senior staff he would use the safe drink water act as a way to circumvent the white house turning them down to get those people hired anyway. Is that the sort of circumstance going behind the white houses back, that would seem to me to be a fatal offense in any cabinet just because of insubordinati insubordination. Thats exactly right. To the outsider this seems like inside baseball but there are processes in place. Those cabinet members that are trying to follow the rules dont take well to somebody who goes around the process and gives unilaterally these alary salar increases. Whats egregious is he uses the authority under the Safe Drinking Water act. The deliberate flouting the white house process in and of itself should mean he gets taken to the wood shed by the white house chief of staff. We saw 64 House Democrats, there have been three House Republicans who have called for pruitts resignation, 64 House Democrats came out in a joint statement today. Does congress have any recourse here . Well, look yes, they do. But what we have found in this administration is the president has been fairly defiant of congress. Hes turned a blind eye to ethics. As long as scott pruitt is doing serious damage to clean air, clean water, turning a blind eye to climate change, hes doing exactly what donald trump wants him to do. But we can never normalize this disregard of ethics and we have to keep talking about it. I do think at some point there is something thats going to be final straw but what it is, im not sure. Chris lu, former press secretary under president obama, never had to confront Something Like this. Thank you. Nice to see you. Well be right back. We do whatever it takes to fight cancer. These are the specialists were proud to call our own. Experts from all over the world, working closely together to deliver truly personalized cancer care. Expert medicine works here. Learn more at cancercenter. Com janice, mom told me you bought a house. Okay. [ buttons clicking ] [ camera shutter clicks ] so, now that you have a house, you can use homequote explorer. Quiet. Im blasting my quads. Janice, look. Im in a meeting. Janice, look. [ chuckles ] look, look. Im looking. Its easy. You just answer some simple questions online, and you get Coverage Options to choose from. Youre ruining my workout. Cycling is my passion. The Cook Political Report is the Gold Standard of tracking elections, and they dont just pop up at election time. Theyre around all the time. So right now seven months out from the midterm elections, you might look at cook as handy way to gauge which way the political winds are blowing right this second. Well, today the Cook Political Report changed their ratings on 13 different Congressional Elections for november. Theyre races all over the country, but they changed their prediction for how those 13 races would go. For all 13 of them today, they shifted their predictions for those races to lean more in the direction of the democrats. Meaning for all 13 of these seats, if they were kind of leaning democratic, theyre now leaning more so. Seats leaning solidly republican are looking less solidly republican. The list of races moved by the Cook Political Report toward the democrats includes one congressional seat in purple wisconsin. That is resonating now because democrats and progressives have been waiting upset elections there. In january a democrat won a Wisconsin Senate seattenyear t. It was the first time in 23 years. That led that wisconsin win for liberals led for lots of blue wave prognostication and blue wave here by republicans. If that cook report is right, more upsets are on the way, not only in wisconsin but beyond. Thats does it for us tonight. Well see you again on monday. Now its time for the last word tonight with the great ali velshi. Im ali velshi in for lawrence odonnell. There are new indications that president tr