trump campaign's ties to russia when "the 11th hour continues." >> mr. president, you're under fbi investigation. >> president trump, what's your response to the fbi investigating campaign ties to russia? >> president trump? distracting you? doctors recommend taking non-drowsy claritin every day of your allergy season for continuous relief. with claritin, you get powerful, non-drowsy relief, 24-hours a day. day after day. and with fewer symptoms to distract you, you can focus on the extraordinary things you do every single day. live claritin clear. every day. you foundi'm a robot! cars.com rawr yeti and found a place to service it, too. ♪ jingle bells now when you're ready, you can sell your old car and find your new one all on cars.com you know us for shopping, and now we're there for every turn. cars.com >>> welcome back. the white house again today tried to distance the president and his administration from the ongoing investigations into russia's interference with the u.s. election. here is press secretary sean spicer. >> at some point, there is a distinction between an inves

political team were the subject of an active and open investigation into ties to russia. in the old days, a story that big would have lasted us a couple of weeks but not in 2017 because then comes tuesday, the president went to capitol hill, told republicans on health care, "a loss is not acceptable." on tuesday, we were on the air all day for the confirmation hearings of the man who barring political disaster, will be soon known as justice gorsuch and at the age of 49, could thus impact american life and law for a half century or more. on wednesday, the chairman of the house intelligence committee decided on his own to head down to the white house to share intelligence with the subject of the investigation he's supposed to be heading. the ranking democrat followed that by saying the evidence showing russia ties is now more than circumstantial in his view. just last night, we came on the air to report republicans had pulled the vote for a day on health care. on orders from the white house to stop negotiating and get on with it. it was never voted on it turns out. it would have faile

have had a much closer relationship with russia than teen one we've been telling you about on this show since last july. according to the associated press, manafort once proposed a covert plan to benefit vladimir putin by influencing politics and news coverage inside the former soviet republic's and the united states. he began pitching the plan to a russian oligarch and vladimir putin ally. he said his work for him didn't involve representing russia's political interests, this despite the fact the proposal stated if hired by him manafort's proposal would, and i, quote, greatly benefit the putin government. in the circle of trump associates with ties to russia, those who has russian receptionist turned most scrutiny are the ones most likely to tell investigators a few of trump's favorite little words, let's make a deal. david corn, washington bureau chief, malcolm nance, thank you all for being here. michelle, you tweeted out this week a very intriguing flash back to 1989 a number. abc news reporting about paul manafort on influence. >> april 1987 after his lobbying helped persuade

investigating the president's campaign and its potential ties to russia for months. >> and whether there was any coordination between the campaign and russia's efforts. >>> i'll talk to the leading democrat on the senate intel committee, mike warner of virginia. >> and this piece of advice for president trump. don't fight everybody. pick your battles. >> i sit down with jerry brown of california. joining me for insight and analysis are, tom brokaw of nbc news, joy reid, host of a.m. joy, hugh hewitt and ileana johnson of politico. welcome to sunday. it's "meet the press." >>> from nbc news in washington, the longest-running show in television history celebrating its 70th year, this is "meet the press" with chuck todd. >>> good sunday morning by any standard, that was the most consequential week in donald trump's young presidency in the span of just five days, mr. trump's credentiality with voters and his clout for congress were dealt big blows. mr. comey is investigating possible links between the trump campaign and the russian government. by friday, house republicans had to pull t

and when an administration misleads the public about contact with russia and when, without evidence, the president of the united states accuses his predecessor of illegally wiretapping him sending capitol hill on what by all accounts is an absolutely wild goose change. today white house officials told the a.p. the president got that claim from breitbart news which had written up a rant from a right wing radio host. and they placed that breitbart piece in trump's daily reading pile, the official said, and the president was off there's a good chance that happened but it's hard to say because that claim itself comes from a white house official and as these 50 days have shown, that means none of us should take it at vase fall. >>> joining me now, joy reid, host of msnbc's "a.m. joy." joy, the wiretapping was the most extreme version of this. thousands of hours in newsrooms, around all of our political media complex have been devoted to getting to the bottom of this tweeted claim when it was obviously just, for lack of a better word, b.s. from an article he read. >> as you were going thr

authority to try to change the subject from the russia investigation to something else. l and take on comey in the process. >> seems to me comey is scared, you know what i mean next. he can't talk. he's unable to say the truth to the public. which he knows to be true. he'll get fired for it. it seems to me trump will fire him in five minutes or faster if he comes out and says the president is not telling the truth. he knows it. comey knows nothing was done. comey can say the president never told me to wiretap this president when he was a candidate. you explain to me the motive why you're whispering. tell everybody it's not true. on background you can can't say this is top credit. won't stand there like a man and say i'm sorry mr. president. i never wiretapped you on behalf of the former president. stop saying it. in fact, take it back. why doesn't he do it. >> that moment may be coming at some point. i think more importantly it's important that president trump stand up, tell the american public that he lied and that it was just politics. >> malcolm. he's not going to say that. >> f

unify against russia. a year later, he talking about why shouldn't we have peaceful relationship with russia. something is going on in side of that white house. that's the story we have to keep focused on. >> joel, thank you for joining us. >> thank you, greta. >>> what are republicans saying. i'll talk to rand paul about that. >>> what in the world happened. so when i need to book a hotel room, i want someone that makes it easy to find what i want. booking.com gets it. they offer free cancellation, in case i decide to go from kid-friendly to kid-free. now i can start relaxing even before the vacation begins. your vacation is very important. that's why booking.com makes finding the right hotel for the right price easy. visit booking.com now to find out why we're booking.yeah that just tastes better. with 10 times more vitamin e. and twice the omega 3s. because why have ordinary when you can have the best. only eggland's best. better taste. better nutrition. better eggs. [ rumbling ] this this this is my body of proof. proof of less joint pain and clearer skin. this is my body of proof

actually chosen him to be ambassador to, of all places russia. >> russia. and if his twitter insults are kind of precede how he treats people in the future, him insulting like that on twitter means you're probably up for an ambassadorship some time soon. >> who knows. that's right. the part where he says lawrence is very lonely. rachel, he used to care about how i felt. and, you know, that was kind of touching. >> i am sorry to have to say this, but i'm so glad he is obsessed with you and not me. i'm happy with this. >> it's my luck. thank you, rachel. >> well done. >> well, sometimes it only takes one. and lindsey graham might turn out to be the one republican senator who does the most damage to donald trump. >> reported details released by wikileaks of how 2 cia is able to turn and home devices into potent eavesdropping tools. >> is the cia listening to me through my microwave oven? >> no. >> if they were, would you say yes? >> yes. >> the president has accused the u.s. government under his predecessor of tapping his phones. well. >> trump said it was particularly upsetting becse he is

inextricably bound up in the new national nightmare about russia hacking our presidential election. before that's what we thought of when we thought of wikileaks. and it happened and this country you see there. between russia on the top and giant iran on the bottom. this country called small country, it's about the size much ireland. it's a former soviet state run by a dictator. now they have got oil money, that's always a good combination. the new oil money doesn't of course mean that the people of that country are no better off. it never works that way under a dictator. and in the case though, they're oil wealth resulted in them doing a lot of building. they've built a whole bunch of stuff, particularly in their capital city of vacoup. big showoffy buildings, in particular for government agencies. and in 2007, the transportation minister -- he had what could have been a really, really important meeting for the future of his country. he met with becktell. to talk about roads. he met with this giant american company that has, you know, that built the tacoma narrows bridge, the late

president during a hurricane. >> the reports that i did see did not have anything to do with russia. >> this should not be as political as it is. this is about russia attacking our elections. >> it's clear that this investigation is picking up steam. and this may be an attempt by the chairman and the white house to slam the brakes on it. >> i've never seen a committee chairman come out on the press and pour gasoline all over himself and light himself on fire, which is basically what he did. >> this has been the most extraordinary week in devin nunes' career, and it's only wednesday. on monday, he chaired an historic hearing in the house of representatives that was devastating to the president of the united states. the fbi director and the director of the national security agency told the house intelligence committee that the president lied when he tweeted that president obama had wiretapped trump tower and wiretapped donald trump. devin nunes as the republican chairman of that committee did not offer one word of defense of the republican president's tweet. not one word. no republica

? overall the russia issue but on the wiretapping issue? >> what the white house says they want to do. it allows people like mitch mcconnell who know it's not true i have to evidence of it but do an investigation. i thought the best part of that interview yesterday, willie, we haven't played yet when they asked mitch mcconnell, is mexico going to pay for the fall? he goes, ah h, no. he is emerging early as one of our favorites in answering the questions. he is not going to be cow tow to some of the republicans. >> as you said on the first part of it the about comey visit. so much of this is theater. you say mitch mcconnell knows that the president of the united states did not wiretap trump tower. all of these congressmen and senators know it's an easy phone call to make and easy answer to get. now they are going through the for maladi forities to wait for the official process to play out. we spend one week on this that last saturday morning tweeted this this is a waste of time for the country. we should be getting into the health care bill and focus on important things. the fact this has

clinton. now it's the cia, which, as we know is investigating trump's ties to russia. the information that we have right now is that wikileaks did get its information from russia in the first place. you have to look at what the attent is here. is it to tip us off about some deep state spying against us when there's no evidence of that or to sow distrust among americans in our institutions. >> thank you for joining us on our set. matt rosenberg there earlier. >>> a live look now on capitol hill where at this moment a couple house committees are marking up or making changes to the republican plan to replace obamacare. as we've been talking about it, it's already getting met with rezr resistance from some top conc n conservatives. we'll be joins by one democrat after the break to talk about whether he could ever support this plan. (gasp) hey, deb, there's a budget meeting today. budget meeting? sweet. budget meeting. budget meeting. budget meeting? if you compare last quarter to this quarter, you'll notice that there's a strong fiscal pattern... it's no wonder everything seems a little b

big issues come back into focus like the investigation into president trump's alleged russia ties. new developments in that investigation as the republican congressman leading the intelligence committee comes under scrutiny. senator lindsey graham faced tough questions as he was grilled by voters in south carolina today as he addressed that investigation along with health care. >> we begin this hour with a defiant white house 24 hours after a stunning -- the president and vice president today renewed their pledge to get rid of obama care. president trump tweeting this morning he is going to watch obama care "explode." vice president pence a short time ago in west virginia defended the president's efforts to repeal it. >> every day obama care survives is another day that america suffers. that's why the president worked tirelessly over the last several weeks to get congress to repeal and replace obama care. you saw his resolve to work with whoever he needed to work with, to call whoever he needed to call to get our plan across the finish line. yesterday wasn't a victory for the amer

monday when james comey testifies on the russia/trump probe. could this put everything to rest? >> it could. comey is the most authoritative figure. there is another direction this could go in which is trump's claims could be somewhat true, but that would actually redound probably negatively for trump. it would mean that an intelligence court had issued a warrant saying that there was some probable cause to investigate trump tower or trump associates. which would not be the way that trump would want it to go here. so, you know, certainly wait to see what james comey has to say. there are a lot of issues he's going to have to address. the alleged russian connections among others that he might be able to put to rest. he's been cagey in revealing information. >> a lot of people want to know what's being said. how much of it is going to be public, do you know? >> i don't know yet. that's always been one of the contentions that has gone back and forth on capitol hill about an investigation into alleged russian medalidling in the elections. they would do a report and after the report would

attention to the russia questions and any potential interference or a lack of complete transparency in the chairman's conduct. he defends his actions and says that aside from the apology that he gave to the committee members for not fully briefing them on some of the information he took to the white house, he intends to stay. so it is a huge position. it is one of real -- the favor of the speaker is involved. and so if nunes continues to lose support, that's something to watch very carefully. i don't think we're there just yet. >> he is not going to be giving any other committee members information that he received, the information that he received from this source or tell him who the source is. yesterday on the "today" show, lindsey graham says you can't be a leader without telling your committee what you know and who you know it from. >> it is a problem, especially in a committy where there's a shared sense of cooperation and confidence. and the discretion involved with handling these high-level security matters and intelligence matters. so it is a problem for devin nunes. the questi

mimum. what the senate is doing, so we can understand with regard to russia and russia's intentions toward united states and our elections. i think that's a proefessional way to approach this. the house has committed too many process fouls. we may still need to have an independent bipartisan investigation. we have to see what will happen with the senate. on the dark campaign of fake news, that's still ongoing. we see even someone like myself get swept up in all of this. when people like me are speaking on behalf of process, people spin to it suit their needs. and it may be the russians are behind even such fake news today. >> let me jump in on this. sean spicer did bring your name up in the press beefing. he talked about something you said on morning joe. i want to get your reaction. >> we are not going to engage actively in that kind of leaking that has been a problem. if you look at the obama's deputy assistant secretary of defense out there, evelyn farkas, she made it clear it was their goal to spread this information around. that they went around and did this. she said, quote, t

longer investigation process which will deal with issues on russia meddling in the 2016 election to focus in on this one issue asking for a production of evidence. so that would happen, but behind the scenes, because of the nature of this being potentially classified information. in the larger sense we have some big clues where you have officials who are briefed by the intel je intel jens community who could have firsthand access to this information as they stand right now who say they've seen nothing to suggest that there is such evidence to such a wiretap. so that has discredited the tweet and the whole issue of the credibility of the president is somehow being measured by this example and the president has been far less visible to reporters this week. he's been on camera for events and not taking questions in the way he did if the first few weeks of his presidency. today elija cummings, democrat of maryland who was here at the white house and met with the president on a separate topic and raised the issue of the president's credibility when it comes to some of the things he's bee

you, sean. can you confirm that any cooperation with russia with regard to syria is off the table, and if not, is it fair to say that the forthcoming anti-isis plan does include some sort of cooperation with russia? >> i'm not going to get into what the -- the plan is not done yet as i mentioned a couple days ago. secretary mattis was briefing the principles and that plan is continuing to evolve. i'm not going to rule out one country but the president has been clear in the past if a country shares our commitment to defeating isis and we can work in an area of shared mutual concern then we will do so. >> second question. kremlin spokesperson said that russian president putin and president trump will meet at the g-20. can you confirm that? and would the white house rule out a possibility of a meeting before that? >> iwill follow up on that. i don't have a date. i know that the team is working very actively with respect to bilateral meetings at the g-20. i don't have anything for you on that. row we are ta? >> reporter: director mulvaney said yesterday he felt the obama administratio

investigations of possible ties between the trump campaign and russia. paul manafort trump's one time campaign manager is under growing scrutiny. what role will he play going forward? sxwrir no matter how dusty the room or how high the pollen count, flonase allergy relief keeps your eyes and nose clear. flonase helps block 6 key inflammatory substances that cause nasal congestion and itchy, watery eyes. for relief beyond the nose. flonase. hi, i'm frank. i take movantik for oic, opioid-induced constipation. had a bad back injury, my doctor prescribed opioids which helped with the chronic pain, but backed me up big-time. tried prunes, laxatives, still constipated... had to talk to my doctor. she said, "how long you been holding this in?" (laughs) that was my movantik moment. my doctor told me that movantik is specifically designed for oic and can help you go more often. don't take movantik if you have a bowel blockage or a history of them. movantik may cause serious side effects, including symptoms of opioid withdrawal, severe stomach pain and/or diarrhea, and tears in the stomach or i

? while he talke aboutadical islamic terror mean didn't say the word russia or other things people thought he might have said. >> the russian point is extremely important. unless we get to the bottom of trump's involvement with putin and russia and putin's involvement in our election, anything trump does on russia going forward is going to be questions and suspect. say he does want to collaborate with the russians in syria or iraq or in some other theater. everyone is going to be asking, why is he doing that? what's behind it? there's no one who needs to get to the bottom of the russia/trump connection more than donald trump and his national security team. they will be haunted and hobbled by it. as long as we don't know what the truth is there. >> tom friedman, thanks for joining us on set. check out tom's latest column in "the times" today. >>> coming up, it's complicated. the battle going on inside the republican party over president trump's health care prescription. florida congressman ron desantis is with us to talk about it. there he is, next. get to nissan now. and save on a

into connections about russia. he seems to be saying i'm not going anywhere and that's what the leadership is saying as well. >> that's right, kate. i spoke to nunez this morning and asked whether he planned on recusing himself as democrats demanded. he wouldn't answer the question, but said it will keep going as he once insisted that it would. the house speaker asked whether he would join in calls for recusal really. it's in the speaker's hands and he believes nunez should recuse or remove nunez as chairman of the committee, but at this point republicans are all standing behind devin nunez as there have been the series of investigations looking into russian medaling in the election. anything that may have been improper. he went to the white house grounds on tuesday and he wouldn't say who the source of his information was. a lot of speculation. he wouldn't rule out that it was somebody inside the white house who provided this information. the house speaker said he doesn't know where nunez got the information. this led us to where we are. there are a lot of questions about the c

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chinese president xi. more only in a minute but first, the latest surrounding the russia investigation and former national security adviser michael flynn. joining me, hans nichols, ken delaney who covers intelligence and national security, msnbc contributor michael, a former u.s. ambassador to russia, and congressman jim himes who was nice enough to stick around with us as well as mychalen with our d.c. bureau. he had national security roles in the george w. bush white house. he is now managing director at beacon global strategies. hans, let's start. but i want to talk about the press briefing. wasn't contentious but reporters were repeatedly trying to get information regarding who devin nunes met. was it appropriate that he met with them and was it happening at the direction of the white house? >> and very little was portrayed in terms of knowledge or information. the main the point we heard from sean spicer was mono syllablic answer. he said it won't in any way imperil white house officials leading up to donald trump. that's the the headline i took out of it. they're co

it wasn't related to russia. he's continuing, as all of his public comments, is that he's going to continue to pursue this and they'll have further updates later. i'm not aware of the specific nature of it. >> reporter: what would the president's reaction be to republicans who vote against the health care bill tonight? are they being encouraged to vote their conscience? >> i think eye addressed this before. i think the president's made very clear that republicans in particular have made a commitment to constituents and the american people that if given the opportunity to have a republican president or republican senate and republican house, that they would enact a repeal and replace and put into it health care. he believes, as he mentioned during when he met with the house conference, as he mentioned with the members of the freedom caucus today, and i think in several meetings, this is something weave talked about. you've taken a bunch of these free votes when it didn't matter because you didn't have a republican president and you got to vote for repeal and go back and tell your co

ruhle live from washington, d.c. this morning digging in. the republican leading the russia investigation refuses to recuse himself and won't reveal his secret source to anyone. >> even the other members of the committee? >> no. >> a republican congressman says he needs to step aside. >>> obamacare round two. the president hosting a bipartisan group of senators and promising repeal and replace ain't over yet. >> i know that we're all going to make a deal on health care, that's such an easy one. >> and out of the woods. hillary clinton back on the stage with her most political speech yet. >> these are bad policies that will hurt people. >> we begin today with the house investigation into trump campaign ties to russia. now stalled indefinitely. hearings and meetings cancelled while intelligence chairman devin nunes is defying calls to step aside. but in the senate, something to keep an eye on today because they are forging ahead. the chair and vice chair, republican and democrat of the intelligence committee set to brief the press. i've got a great team with me to break it all

between the trump campaign and russia. >>> plus supreme pick. a battle 13 months in the making begins today. >> i'm dying for somebody over there tell me why he's not qualified to be sitting here. >> and how today's hearings on the hill took a page from this '80s classic. >> bueller. bueller. bueller. >> this is mtp daily, and it starts right now. >>> good evening, i'm katy tur in new york in for chuck todd. welcome to mtp daily. we begin tonight with a stunning rebuke of a sitting president by his intelligence chiefs. today, both the fbi director james comey and nsa director mike rogers, both holdovers from the obama administration, testified publicly in front of the house intelligence committee. and questioned the white house's credibility as it continues to defend president trump's unsubstantiated statements that president obama wiretapped trump during the campaign. first, here's what fbi director comey told the committee's ranking member, congressman adam schiff. >> director comey, was the present statement that obama had his wires tapped in trump tower a true statement? >> with r

attorney general and first senate supporter lied under oath about meetings with russia's ambassador during the campaign. right now the president is aboard the "uss gerald ford" in newport news. will he answer a series of questions about ag jeff sessions. "the washington post" reporting, sessions met with russian envoy twice last year in encounters did not disclose. this morni sessionses insides there's no there there. >> i have not met with any russians at any time to discuss any political campaign and those remarks are unbelievable to me and false. >> so, what comes next for sessions? if you're a democrat, it's recuse or resign. if you're a republican, well, it's more complicated. >> if he himself is a subject of investigation, of course he would, but if he's not, i don't see any purpose or reason to do this. >> i do think he needs to clarify. i think he should recuse himself, absolutely. >> should he recuse himself? >> no. >> if there is an investigation, probably shouldn't be involved in it. >> the american people served him. >> could jeff have been more clear in what he said? ye

there's going to be a serious investigation of russia and the trump campaign. >> it's getting really interesting. thank you. that does it for us this morning. stephanie ruhle picks up the coverage right now. >> thank you so much, mika. >>> good morning, i am stephanie ruhle. breaking news overnight, donald trump's taxes. msnbc the first to reveal a portion of the president's 2005 return. >> donald trump's tax returns have surfaced. >> what they say about his income and new questions about who leaked them. >> trump has a long history of leaking material about himself when he thinks it's in his interest. >> deadline day. the senate demanding answers today about the wiretap investigation from the fbi. >> if it's not true just say it's not true. why is it taking so long to get the answer? >>> and the president hitting two states today trying to salvage the health care bill as more republicans say changes must be made. >> if it's not going to pass the senate it raises a good question of why house members would want to vote for this bill? >> so much to cover. >>> we are starting with break

associates, about what occurred during the campaign with respect to russia? >> nope. >> nope. we'll see. nbc reported today that the senate intelligence committee turned down general flynn's request for immunity. his lawyer was told it was wildly preliminary to discuss such a thing. joining me right now is "the wall street journal's" carol lee, who broke the story of the attempted immunity deal and "the huffington post's" howard fineman. i'm wondering what the king is thinking tonight. what is trump worried about for michael flynn? what's he got on him? >> well, from the white house's perspective, i mean their posture is that he doesn't have anything on him. but if you step back -- you know, and we don't know. this is somebody mike flynn was with the president almost every day during the campaign. >> he says he has a story to tell. what's the story he wants to tell to the prosecutors? >> we don't know what the story is because mike flynn, there's his time spent requewith donaldp trump in the trump campaign, the transition in the white house. mike flynn has had contacts with russia,

the ties between the trump campaign and russia that it's under investigation. you have reported that on this many times is that true or not true? >> that is true. >> when you do an investigation, what do you do? >> we heard from the head of the house and senate who said they have seen no evidence. >> that's correct. that's correct. >> you are still holding hope there's evidence? >> i'm not hoping anything. devin nunez, the republican chairman of the house intelligence committee said it is plausible and they are continuing to look at the facts. i would like to see what these investigations determine and i think that will help us all understand what happened. one thing is true, many folks who i respect in the media have been reporting these investigations have gone on. that conversations were intercepted by our government and that was done by obama, by the obama administration during a heated campaign. if there are reasons to do that, i want to hear them. they better be damn good because we have never seen this that one administration starts investigating the opponent. >> we have

washington. last 24 hours revealed trump administration officials and the russia ambassador to the united states. last night they broke the story that the jeff sessions met with the russian during 2016 campaign. that story pushed the attorney general to recuse himself. here is how he said he came to that decision after consulting with his staff. >> they said since i had involvement with the campaign, i should not be involved in any campaign investigation. i have studied the rules and considered their comment and evaluation. i believe those recommendation are right and just. therefore, i have recused myself in the matters that deal with the trump campaign. >> late today, the "new york times" reported president trump's son-in-law taking together this shows disturbing pattern of rolling disclosure among the president's inner circle. here what we know. during convention week of july 18, then senator sessions spoke with the russian ambassador. the news of meddling was established. the washington most reported that the united states was investigate covert kremlin ban to disrup our election. sep

president's claim of wiretapping. there is also the alleged ties between trump associates and russia. the top democrat on the committee now saying there is circumstantial evidence of collusion. the trump administration warns america's allies it plans to get tough on trade and forge better deals. will that america first policy be good for the country in the lounge run. trump supporters could be the hardest hit by bug et and health care proposals. and one million immigrants from ash yeah. how trump immigration policy affects that group. to voice your opinions on your pulse questions, log on to pulse.msnbc.com/america. that's where you can participate and you can voice as often as you like throughout today's show and we will be sharing your thoughts throughout the hour. okay. let's start here. the leading democrat suggests today he has seen circumstantial evidence of collusion between trump campaign associates and russian entities. >> there is circumstantial evidence of collusion. there is direct evidence i think of deception. and that's where we begin the investigation. the american people have

. about it is russia and president's attorney general head the day. jeff sessions announced he was recusing himself to take himself out of any investigation into russian interference in the 2016 election. that after reports he did not disclose contact with the russian ambassador kislyak. he did not remember discussing the campaign in any significant way with russian's ambassador before his office called it to relay a message to him. >> i don't recall any discussion of the campaign in any significant way in no way coordinating effort of doing anything improper, i don't believe anything in that meeting would have seen or believe i said one thing improper or unwise. >> ard cooing to news reports you met twice with ambassador kislyak. is that extent of your contacts, those three events. >> i don't recall if i had a conversation with him or not. >> we received a call from your office, there was not a phone call between you and the russian ambassador. that's been included in press account. was there? >> i don't recall any such phone call. >> so clearly, the attorney general and his staff

or not. but on top of the fact that they -- there's the russia thing, but the things they have tried to do, he had great fun signing a lot of executive orders. this is tough, what does he do differently? how does he restructure the white house if necessary? >> all right, i'm going to leave it there. what a day, appreciate you being here with me for it. we have one more thing about this health care battle that you actually may have missed. so keep it here and you'll see it. i love how usaa gives me the peace of mind and the security just like the marines did. at one point, i did change to a different company with car insurance, and i was not happy with the customer service. we have switched back over and we feel like we're back home now. the process through usaa is so effortless, that you feel like you're a part of the family. i love that i can pass the membership to my children, and that they can be protected. we're the williams family, and we're usaa members for life. call usaa today to talk about your insurance needs. cohigher!ad! higher! parents aren't perfect, but then they make

there was no connection to russia? you choose not to cover that, you don't stop the narrative, you can't to perpetuate a false narrative. >> reporter: i'd like you to respond -- >> and i'm trying to answer your question, jonathan, if you can calm down. >> reporter: does the president stand by the allegations? >> he stands by it but you're mischaracterizing what happened. >> spicer led a long list of anonymously sourced report which is can only be characterized as "purporting to be in the ballpark of what the president was alleging without any grain of evidence of the president's actual claims. later senator mark warner, the vice chairman of the senate intelligence committee made clear spicer was wrong in suggesting the statement was less than definitive. >> we're 1213, days, almost two weeks from his tweet, we've seen no evidence. there's been no evidence from anybody in the intelligence community. that has validated that tweet. if he has more information, share it with at least the intelligence committee or retract his statement. >>> joining me now, susan hennessey, former attorne

looking for. >> what we're seeing is the effective covert operation that russia has carried out. >> i think it would serve us all well if he recuse himself from the russia issue. >> thank you. >> chairman intelligence devin nunes is in the middle of publicly to cover up we've ever seen, he's not in it alone. paul ryan is doing everything he can to help him. everything about this is an ept beginning with the simple fact that it is public, cover ups are not suppose to be public and you're not suppose to help publicly identify exactly, exactly what you want to cover up the most. >> we're not going to ever talk about any of that. >> that is the clearest answer devin nunes about what he wants to keep covered up. to many other questions, he's given general answers like this one. >> so you're not going to tell the committee who your source is? >> we never talk about sources of ethics. i wouldn't expect you to do that either. you guys are so infatuated with sources. >> there you go, that's the kind of general deflecting answer you're suppose to give when you're in the middle of a cover up, wh

interest. i'm sure you can guess which country it involves. yep, russia. >>> bill karins with your st. patrick's day forecast. we're back in a moment. i had frequent heartburn, but my doctor recommended... ...prilosec otc 7 years ago, 5 years ago, last week. just 1 pill each morning, 24 hours and zero heartburn. it's been the number 1 doctor recommended brand for 10... ...straight years, and it's still recommended today. use as directed. >>> welcome back. the house committee investigating moouk l flynn revealed that flynn was paid $65,000 by companies linked to russia in 2015 two months before he became a formal adviser to president trump's campaign. according to a letter released, the fees were for speaking engagements that came before he was a official adviser to trump's campaign. the companies that paid flynn include d the russian government's seven-day forecast channel. involving russian officials at the u.n. and an american branch of a cyber security if you remember believed to have ties to the intelligence services. he became an official adviser in trump's campaign in 2016. h

and the other parts of the investigation into his ties to russia is still very much alive. >> i'm going to bring the popcorn on march 20th. that will be interesting. thank you both i appreciate it. >>> next a journalist and former member of parliament who first claimed trump tower was under government surveillance. she joins me. she'll tell me how the president's claim fits with her reporting. plus her response to those who doubt her story. >>> it's been one week since president trump dropped his wire tap bomb shell. he's not the first to claim trump tower was under government surveillance. four months ago, heat street, a year old libertarian leaning news site reported that the fbi was granted a fisa warrant which allowed them a closer look at a server, which may have been linked to two russian banks. joining me now the journalist behind the report, louise mensch, you reported the existence of a warrant, not anything to the with the trump or trump tower within itself. >> that's right. >> thanks for being here with us. >> thank you. >> let's start with this. how does the president'

and comes out in a press conference saying it's not about russia. what do you think is going on? >> the thing that's unfortunate about this whole weird scenario is that the white house has been constant constantly, in an effort to redirect or misdirect the investigation into the russia-trump connections, to become an issue of whether the president was wiretapped or where there are leaks or anything but looking at the subject matter of the investigation. because of the direction that chairman nunes took this, it looks like he esbuying into and participating in the white house strategy of redirection or misdirection. that rlly n't a role he should play. fra frankly, it's not something the white house should be doing. it just isn't legit. >> when does misdirection become cover-up? >> you know, the difference between misdirection and on strurkz strurkz -- obstruction of justice is one they're beginning to trespass pretty close to. you want to be really careful about messing around with ongoing investigations. the fbi is looking into this. to the extent efforts by the white house to

in 1980, that was the last time russia gotten a olympics for a very, very long time. for a generation. fast forward to 2007. july, 2007, the international olympic committee met in this city, in lovely guatemala city in guatemala to make a decision about who would get the winter olympic games in 2014. as you can see, guatemala city is lovely, kcosmopolitan place. the international olympic committee likes to do their selections of cities who get the olympics, they like to do it with as much drama and pomp and circumstance as possible so there was really global focus on the international olympic committee when they convened that july in guatemala city to make their decision about where the winter olympics was going to be in 2014. and the top three contenders were salzburg in austria, pyeongchang in south korea and russia. the city of sochi in russia, it would have been russia's first olympic games since 1980. it's interesting, most people thought pyeongchang was going to get it. pyeongchang had only narrowly come in second place to vancouver for the 2010 olympics so people tho

information before the march 20th hearing on russia with the spokesman warning they may start issuing subpoenas if questions continue to go unanswered. >>> and today the president's middle east peace envoy travels to the west bank to meet with palestinian president mahmoud abbas. this comes one day after jason greenbrat met with benjamin netanyahu. the settlement issue and the need for the direct palestinian negotiations were discussed. >>> and german chancellor angela merkel's visit to the white house has been postponed due to the huge storm. merkel will have her first meeting with president trump on friday. the pair is also expected to hold a joint news conference. >>> and now to that monster storm, millions of people across the northeast and midatlantic are in the midst of a nor'easter with several states of emergency already in full effect. let's get right to nbc meteorologist bill karins. bill, what's the latest? >> the storm is rapidly moving to the northeast. it's intensifying and it's sending the heavy snow into the areas we thought it would. there are also some rain out there

of russia -- and i do not quite know what to make of it, but there's a vary specific part of it that it is worth sticking a pin in because at some point we are going to figure out what this means and we've got to notice these things when they pop in the news. all right, today, the justice department, you might have seen these headlines, the justice department today brought criminal charges against four russian intelligence operatives for an alleged -- for their alleged role in a giant hack of yahoo.com a couple years ago, a hack that stole information on hundreds of millions of people. the indictment says that that hack of yahoo.com wasn't just a commercial theft or some kind of malicious prank, it was a russian intelligence operation that was designed, among other things, to target journalists and foreign officials. so they charged four russians in conjunction with that hack of yahoo today. now, two of the four people who they indicted were young hackers that were reportedly working with the fsb, with the russian spy service, one is in russia and hasn't been picked up, one is in can

" the president's agenda ground to a halt so as the house probe into russia. neither is a good thing at this white house at this moment. they need a win and it needs a win badly. they need democrats to notch it. the russian cloud is gunning up the works and it is going to get worse. the house probe descended into chaos and the white house and gop are stuck playing defense and trying to put out fires. you can sense the frustration and capitol hill. the white house press secretary sean spicer sparred with april ryan as she brought up said russia cloud. >> if the president puts russian salad dressing on his salad, everyone person briefed on this situation with respect to the situation with russia, republican and democrat, obama o pointee career have come to the same conclusion. at some point is you are going to have to take no for an answer. we will keep you in everything we are doing to make sure that what the president told the american people he was going to do to fulfill the pledges and promises to bring back jobs and grow the economy and keep our nation safe, that's what he has bee

the point on twitter. reveali reveali revealing chasms. the fbi confirming its russia inquiry. this is just getting started. news tonight on the growing number of targets. indications the fbi reviewing web traffic for breitbart. we have an explainer on how these intel investigations actually work. >>> then the other story this week. family conflict. how the white house is dubbing those anti-nepotism laws to give ivanka trump a promotion. nepotism in the government. all coming up here on "the point" tonight. >>> tensions boiling over after the major health care defeat splashed across the headlines, civil war and dealmaker who could not close. what does it mean for battles in congress tomorrow? trump digging in to attack fellow republicans, not democrats. a risky strategy given the support he needs for republican plans on tacks and immigration. trump attacking the conservative freedom caucus and reince priebus doubling down on that civil war. >> i think the president is 100% correct and hits the bull's eye in that tweet like he often es. >> bull's eye, a twist that can only come from

the house intelligence committee as part of its look into russia's interference in the u.s. 2016 election and president trump's wiretapping claims. here's house intel chair devin nunes this morning repeating what he says was confirmed through documents his committee received from the fbi on friday. >> was there a physical wiretap of trump tower? no, but there never was and the information we got on friday continues to lead us in that direction. >> no evidence of any collusion? >> no evidence. >> and this is after talking, getting this information from the fbi. >> up to speed on everything i have up to this morning. >> house intelligence committee ranking member took it a step further and here's what he said on "meet the press" just a short time ago. >> there is circumstantial evidence of collusion. there is direct evidence, i think, of deception and that's where we begin the investigation. now i don't want to pre-judge where we ultimately end up and of course, there's one thing to say, there's evidence and there's another thing to say we can prove it or prove it beyond a reasonab

than circumstantial evidence now, that there was collusion between the trump campaign and russia in their attack on the united states. shortly thereafter cnn reported the ongoing fbi investigation into the russian attack into potential trump collusion with that attack, cnn reports that that fbi investigation is increasingly focused on the evidence that investigators have uncovered about collusion between the trump campaign and the russians. and so it's been a bad week even before today and this whole thing was poised to get worse for the administration. the first open hearing of the house intelligence committee where the fbi announced the investigation, that was this past monday. the next open hearing of the same committee was scheduled for tuesday morning of next week. today without warning and without consulting anybody else on his committee, the republican chairman of the house intelligence committee, himself a trump campaign official and trump transition official, today he abruptly canceled the next public meeting of the house intelligence committee and their investigation into

help right away. ask your doctor about cialis. >>> before we go tonight, tough words from russia. >> assuming the pose of nikki haley with a harsh stance. >> we know the russians were behind the hack of yahoo and dnc and med elling in our election. what should the president do? >> take it seriously, we should never trust russia. >> you can see more of that >>> good evening from new york, i'm chris hayes, we were following breaking news on several stories at this very moment. we are just hours before president trump's -- just hours before president trump's revised travel ban was set to take effect, a federal judge in hawaii just about an hour ago has blocked it. the ruling stating it amounts to religious discrimination or at least that they have a good chance of succeeding on the merits on that score. we'll have more on that ahead. first, president trump is in campaign mode, holding a rally in nashville, tennessee, where the house says he will at least touch on the topic that is now dominating capitol hill and indeed the country. the gop's sputtering attempts to repeal and replace

administration and russia. former intelligence director james clapper and fbi director james comey are due to testify monday morning in the first open session testimony that we've got about the russian intervention into the election to help donald trump and any ties that may exist between russia and the trump campaign. we have reporting our hearts out on this all day and i can tell you there are a lot of rumors circulating right now as to what director comey will testify about on monday. what he will or won't describe in terms of ongoing investigations into links between trump and russia but despite our best efforts it's rumors only, nothing we can report with confidence as to what comey is going to say. in this case we'll learn what he has to say by waiting. also today the other inquiry in the senate they made their first announcement about what will be their first public hearing into the russian attack on our election. senator richard burr on the left, senator mark warner on the right announced today about a week and a half after we get comey and clapper testifying on russia on monday, a

and then confirmed a russia probe regarding trump associates, there may be more. this week comey returned to the hill testifying again before the house intel committee about russia, his time in a closed session. and the committee itself facing its own chaos because as you probably saw, republican chr devin nunes may not have been pang close attention. >> director comey was the present statement that obama had his wires tapped in trump tower a true statement? >> with respect to the president's tweets about alleged wiretapping directed at him by the prior administration, i have no information that supports those tweets. and we have looked carefully inside the fbi. the department of justice has asked me to share with you that the answer is the same for the department of justice and all its components, the department has no information that supports those tweets. >> i have seen, i have seen intelligence reports that clearly show that the president-elect and his team were, i guess, at least monitored and disseminated out in intelligence. >> i somewhat do. i must tell you i somewhat do