Rachel Maddow takes a look at the days top political news stories. After his ukraine work dried up. And that is important because thats when he went to one of trumps closest friends and said i really need to get to trump. And then offered to work for trump for free. How and yes became the Campaign Chair is still a weird so far unexplained thing. Today in Court Prosecutors began laying out the evidence for the Dire Straits Manafort was in when he joined one Trumps Campaign for free. Thats something to keep an eye on as the trial goes forward. Joining me, senior white house political reporter, a close observer of the manafort case cynic it began. He was in the courtroom today. And i get to announce that as of today, he is an msnbc contributor. Ive seen some of the early reporting that there were audible gasps. Take us through some of the more audible moments. Well, this reference as having embezzled from manafort was something that grabbed my
was there a sense in the courtroom today that
Rachel Maddow takes a look at the days top political news stories. Their way to keep trump out of the trial. Abc news reports that prosecutors have been coaching their witnesses not to mention trumps name or even that manafort lives in trump tower. The judge in the case has warned that bringing up manaforts ties to trump could unduly influence jurors. There is at least one thing about this trial that is important to the relationship between Paul Manafort and donald trump. The first witness today was tad devine, chief strategist for Bernie Sanders an president ial campaign who worked with manafort on political campaigns in ukraine. The prosecution called him as their first witness to have him describe how much work manafort was doing in ukraine and how lucrative it was. Before we came on the air, we got a rush version of the transcript from todays hearing. Im not going to be able to act out a whole conversation but heres one little bit of the prosecutors Opening Statement worth hear. Th
these dictators. what s your take? let me just say former republican to begin, but look. nonpracticing is what i like to say. right. at the end of the day, donald trump made the world profoundly more dangerous with his reality show diplomacy in singapore. of course, kim jong-un is not honoring the spirit of the agreement and they re working on intercontinental ballistic missile which one day a miniaturized nuclear warhead will sit on top of that could reach the continental united states. she s up there spinning the american people. the intelligence agencies which are forwarding the information are under constant attack by this administration. so roughly for 40% of the country, doesn t matter what the intelligence agency says. what matters is what trump says. now, thankfully, it s a minority of the country but it doesn t change that in actual reality,
time turning down. thanks but no thanks. joining me now, steve schmidt and an old friend of mine from our days at the white house and the campaign trail. you and i worked for someone who could see russia from her house so we re in a position to see whether donald trump is operating from ignorance is bliss or whether he seriously has a thing for these dictators. what s your take? well, nicole, let me say former republican to begin. nonpracticing is what i like the say. at the end of the day, donald trump made the world pro foundly more dangerous with his reality show diplomacy in singapore. of course kim jong-un is not honoring the agreement and they re working on an intercontinental ballistic missile which one day a miniaturized warhead will sit on
to, they say, in singapore is now just completely dead? i think this is an example of the what happens when you don t have a strategy. the president sort of has been kind of doing there reality show diplomacy, a lot of theater, lots of pictures, lots of handshakes. the truth is, there was no agreement to denuclearize the korean peninsula. the president said, the threat of the nuclear north korea is over, was very premature. we were hopeful these talks would produce the outlines of some agreement. the north koreans have a very long history of doing this. making promises they will meet international demands to dismantle their nuclear program, all the while engaging in discussions, speeding up the program, which is what our intelligence community is reporting. this is i think an important lesson that this is a serious issue which requires lots of careful thinking, lots of preparation, lots of oversight.