roger stone. >> the idea that mueller's investigating roger stone is questioning other witnesses, which suggests he could ultimately be one of the witnesses. one witness who's been inside the grand jury thinks he sees a case against roger stone. >> they're trying to put up a case against roger stone and i'm not going to have it, roger is my mentor, and he's like family to me and i'm not going to do it. >> and sam nunberg argued that stone got himself into this mess. >> i said to roger, you're giving yourself a lot of exposure, claiming you're in communication with julians assange. >> did mueller ask you about trump's communication with julian assange? >> which brings us to question two, why did roger stone promote wikileaksing in 2016 but trump the can bat touted wikileaks more than 20 times during the campaign. >> he is a courageous journalist who has an incredible track record for authenticity. say this about julian assange, i reject the idea that he's a russian asset. i reject the idea that wikileaks is a russian front. >> and the person who made this documentary i just excerpted sai

roger stone distanced himself. >> roger stone is president trump's boy. so the question is trump was involved in the strategic release of the e-mails, stone is talking to wikileaks about the e-mails. >> roger stone would protect him. if they're both pretending they're not friends with each other and he was fired together, roger stone would protect donald trump. >> wouldn't he be purgering himself? >> of course. >> the crime is a conspiracy to

stone is a trickster, roger stone is a shady character. and i'm doing any ronald reagan right now. and you know he worked for nixon and why would i be associated with roger stone to help -- but the worst thing about all of this is, is that i am connected now to stone, connected to trump being the president, i am vilified by a lot of my fellow democrats. i'm a democrat. i'm a mcgovern democrat. i help ed bernie sanders on his campaign, if you want a bernie sanders impression, i'll give you that. >> what i want to do, though, is you understand how central you are to this. and i understand you're saying you don't want to be central anymore. i want to move forward with this. >> you know i took the fifth in front of the intel committee. of the. >> let me do the interview, right? that's fair. number one, has anyone in the mueller probe asked you to provide anything, testimonial or evidence? >> no. >> when you were asked this by the house, you took the fifth amendment which you just mentioned? why tell them that? why didn't you just tell them wha

roger stone? roger's my mentor. i e-mail, ari, with roger, 15 times a day, okay? and we had a big disagreement during 2016, because once again, as you know, and i've been honest about this. i wanted trump to lose. i didn't care if trump lost. i thought it would be funny. >> why won't you hand it over? >> because i talked to them. i've spent money on an attorney. i've cooperated with them. and when i got something like this, and then they wanted me to go to the grand jury next friday, and i believe they're trying to start a case against roger, and the reason i believe that is corre that is correct, ari. >> you are holding a subpoena from bob mueller's office. >> by the way -- >> just so we have the facts, that's what you're holding. >> yes, it's a requirement. >> to get documents on those people and for to you go in the grand jury room. why do you think after you did the other interview do they want to make you go in the grand jury room? >> because they're trying to set up a perjury case against roger, and i'm not going to have it. he is like family to me, and i'm

and how that relates to roger stone. >> so sam worked for roger stone. they both worked for the donald trump campaign. early on in the beginning months of the campaign, and they both got let go relatively early. sam is a long-time gop analyst, a strategizer -- strategist, i should say -- not strategizer. any way, a long time gop strategist. he is not fringe, but that is best word to describe him. >> he is a unique operator. >> he operates with reporters in a way that a lot of people don't. >> a new york character. he was involved in getting donald trump prepared to announce -- he was going to run for president. getting him to hold the positions that he got. sam talks about how immigration was his policy. he talked about how the wall was his idea. he talked about why they decided to run on an immigration platform. he talked about in this interview, trying to tell donald trump that being on the side of russia wasn't necessarily the best thing for a gop primary. but at the same time, a gop primary would side with vladimir putin over siding with obama. he ta

he'll get to roger stone. both of these guys are a bunch of sleez balls they'll probably try to lie. they'll be under oath and bob mueller will talk to them on due course on his own schedule. but these guys have a reputation for dirty tricks. and i have to say they make the other guys look like choir boys. these people are not honest. but bob mueller will be dealing with them. >> thank you both very much. i appreciate it. >>> next we have breaking news this hour, this, a middle east expert specialist with ties to donald trump team, a man of trystry, cooperating with the mueller probe. what does he know? and what is he telling mueller? and former double agent from russia believed to be poisoned found on a bench along with his daughter. who wanted this em dead? [burke] at farmers, we've seen almost everything so we know how to cover almost anything. even a "red-hot mascot." eis em dead? mis em dead? s em de? ? ? ? ? [crowd 1] hey, you're on fire! [mascot] you bet i am! [crowd 2] dude, you're on fire! [mascot] oh

he is a fan of roger stone. very close to roger stone. and i think he was sort of lashing out here saying i am not going to participate, i gave five and a half hours of interviews to the fbi and they know everything they need to know. obviously the fbi, the special counsel will have something to say about that. there's also a question of whether, i don't know, was he looking at an e-mail, he wouldn't tell me this, was he looking at something incriminating that was in the e-mail? we don't know the answer to that. maybe, maybe the special counsel does because he has the e-mails. >> he wants to have his cake and eat it too. he came out today to say look, i am not a snitch, but at the same time distance himself from president trump. he is trying to play both sides. >> as you point out, jeffrey, he already spent five and a half hours answering questions from mueller's team. >> right. i would hesitate before assuming there was any grand strategy to what sam nunberg has been doing. i mean, he seemed like to use a technical term, a whack job for

that's also the roger stone philosophy. so you don't rely on what they have to say, you test what they have to say and with reports from other witnesses, they say in fact roger stone was in communication about stolen emails before their release. we need to bring those other witnesses before the committee. >> and bob mueller has not according to stone and our reporting called in roger stone yet. roger stone has a very long running relationship with the president, which he has described a little differently during the course of the campaign, there were times when he said we're cordial, this is all just a big adventure, we speak now and then, and then he said he was sending long memos to the donald once or twice a week by october. that raises the question of whether with all of that claimed communication, if he did have inside track information about wikileaks, which donald trump was mentioning over and over in the campaign, is it a credible line of inquiry as to whether roger stone then candidate trump about that? >> it's cer

he's saying roger stone is a mentor. roger stone is my friend. i'm not going to go testify, or i'm not going to go in front of this grand jury. i'll go to jail before i give up my friend, roger stone. knowing that roger stone and paul manafort are past business partners, it shows the scope of -- possibly the scope of where mueller is going in this investigation, away from donald trump and back to paul manafort and possibly roger stone. >> maria, talk of defying a subpoena is one thing. then going on national television multiple times to argue about it is another. where do you see this going from here? >> i completely agree with you. this was a complete political debacle today, and sadly a personal one for sam nunberg. but a political debacle for trump and his team. the reason i say that is because, yes, they are going to try to defile his credibility, and sam himself has not done himself any favors with his credibility in terms of his history and even in terms of what he did today. but let's remember mueller wants him to testify before the grand

he focused a lot on roger stone and his conversations. he's not kidding that roger stone was his political mentor and he's not kidding that he's got dozens and hundreds of correspondent with him all the way to the relevant period. these are people with whom he had a lot of conversations and as the special prosecutor starts to look more at people like roger stone, you can understand why you might want to know what is in the communication with sam nunberg. >> joy, i'm no lawyer and lord knows i'm no former fed but when you keep saying in effect you'd go to jail to protect roger stone, you sure have unleashed an idea in the cable court of public opinion that maybe roger stone, your buddy, has something to hide. >> if he was trying to protect stone, i think he had precisely the opposite effect today. his conversation with ari melber was meandering, he was all over the place. he seemed to contradict himself at times. but one focus that was clear was that he was concerned about stone and some sort of a risk of committing perjury or other sorts

i do think, look, roger stone seems to be behind this. roger stone wouldn't be guilty of perjury if he hadn't lied. and he may have lied on his work with wikileaks and collusion with russia on behalf of the the 2016 election. so there's something serious going on beneath the comedy and outrageous statements. >> there was a reference to immunity there and there were so many things that were jammed into parts of sentences and parts of answers. but it sounded to me he doesn't have a formal immunity agreement because he'd be violating that today with what he was doing. but he seems to think he's been offered immunity. what did you make of that. >> i think that was the word he used is offered. offered immunity. so not clear whether he's accepted that offer. but one of the things that can happen is the prosecutor could go to the court and get a compulsion order so you try to work out an informal arrangement without bothering the court. but you can go to the court and tell the court, i promise not to use the defendant's statements against him an

roger stone said this. i was briefly part of the trump campaign and have been the president's friend and advisor for decades and would expect that mueller's team would at some point ask for any documents or e-mails sent or written by me, but let me reiterate, i have no knowledge or involvement in russian collusion or any other inappropriate act. >> what say you? >> he strikes me as somebody who stayed too late at an academy award party last night. these stramts completely bizarre. when you receive a grand jury subpoena, it is a good sign in some respects. it means you're probably not the target of the investigation. if they're targeting you, previous to advise you of your right to remain silent and give you a whole host of warnings before they call and you there's a justice department policy against calling targets into the grand jury. it is unfair to them. they should take the fifth amendment. it is a good sign. but secondly, if you defy a grand jury subpoena, it is a very serious thing. you're almost auto

sam nunberg is a roger stone guy. he worked for trump for a few years hoping the 38 ground work and i guess he's entitled to be upset that he got shoved out by a team that came in later. but i can't believe sam nunberg does this media stunt without talk to roger stone, the master of media stunts. whether there's a method to the madness, it's not true that roger stone didn't collude with julian assange. he went out of his way to say that. the russian collusion, stone has been a key figure in that. if there was no real collusion, didn't he signal the stuff would be coming? >> he said something will be, like monday will be john podesta's turn in the barrel. a signal that podesta is next and soon enough, his e-mails which were fished and hacked and released. >> roger stone says he has not been subpoenas to turn over documents like the subpoena he obviously got. but he did issue a statement while sam nunberg was on his first interview of the day, saying if he is asked to turn over, he thinks he will be asked, sam nunberg c

steve bannon, roger stone? roger is my mentor. >> plus, trade war. what is it good for? >> trade wars aren't so bad. >> and primary color check for the lone star state. it's the tale of voter turnout in either red, blue or purple texas. >> across texas, it's doubled. these are democratic votes. this is historic what's happening here. >> this is "mtp daily" and it starts right now. >>> good evening, and welcome to "mtp daily." i'm chuck todd in new york. joining me live in just a moment is roger stone, one of president trump's long-time confidants an closest advisers. we'll talk to him about the intensifying russia probe as the special counsel's investigation seems to be getting closer and closer to the president and showing more interest in mr. stone. it will be stone's first live interview since the marathon cable news appearances by his long-time aide and protege, sam nunberg. nunberg did back-to-back-to-back interviews monday defending stone. he said repeatedly he would refuse to comply with a grand jury subpoena and he would not turn over e-mails, texts and other doc

a day, not all that helpful to roger stone. helpful to the special counsel and people in that office. and i just think sam nunberg, this is a guy, all reporters have talked to, anybody covering trump, we've all talked to him dozens of times. and you take what he says with a grain of salt. he is not in the inner circle. everything he hears is second or third hand. >> is he a kato kalin type? >> he has people compared today in the full nunberg to the o.j. chase and watching this sort of thing that you're stunned to see going on for hours and hours. >> he is not that shy. as i mentioned, nunberg also said that donald trump knew about that infamous meeting with russians at trump tower in june of 2016. let's watch him sort of give it away here. >> do you think that donald trump says that president trump says he knew nothing about the meeting. do you think that's true? >> no. >> you don't think that's true? >> no. you know it's not true. he talked about it the week before. and i don't know why he did this. all he had to say was, yeah

roger was treated terribly by donald trump. >> nunberg's loyalty to roger stone wasn't the only thing he told ari melber. he went further about the mueller team's process and about donald trump. >> i know mueller, i know the whole team and they're right and they probably have something on trump. trump did something pretty bad. i think they were interested with something with his business. >> with his business. did they ask you how he ran his business? >> yes. by the way, i have no idea what he did. >> nunberg went even further at appearance on cnn to a later point to suggest whatever it is the president might have done could have an impact on the president's preferred news network. >> by the way, you're going to be fine when it comes out what he did, but people like sean hannity, lou dobbs, they're going to be very embarrassed when it comes out. >> the white house, however, is dismissing nunberg's claims about any potential case against this president. >> i think he doesn't know that for sure because he's incorrect. as we've said many times before, there was no collusion with the trum

roger stone, which he was very emphatic about. number two, i think we can play this sound, he also disclosed in the interview to me that he is under the impression through his lawyer he was offered immunity, which is new and relevant information. >> we have that. let's actually share it. >> what they did tell me was i wasn't going to be a subject or target and i was going to get the same kind of immunity. but they wanted something. now, ari, let me just say something -- >> they offered you immunity? >> yes. >> ari? >> it is significant, if true, that he has, from his lawyers, an immunity offer. i asked whether it was to him or his lawyers because it's more serious if it was to his lawyer, which he says it was, and, again, that gives us an indication that bob mueller is interested in something. you don't put people in the box for something and you don't offer immunity if you're not interested in something. >> so why would he be pworried about -- >> he's not afraid to say the president of the united states may have done something th

stone, and why did roger stone just join sam nunberg in speaking out? nunberg told me he believes mueller's building a case. >> trying to set up a perjury case against roger stone. roger is my mentor. roger is like family to me. and i'm not going to do it. i'm not going to do it. wronger is my mentor, like a father to me. i don't care. i'm not going to go into a grand jury for them to set up a case against roger, whatever case it is. which could be ridiculous. >> now, those could be just theorys of a stressed and loyal lieutenant. then tonight stone, this long-time media strategist, batted clean up in his men tees media tour and said this. >> he is not speaking it at my behest or my direction. i would not have advised him to ignore or refuse a document production subpoena. i was pleased to read today that he's changed his mind about that. >> stone stressing he wants nunberg to cooperate. but why do so many roads seem to lead to roger stone? the trump advise ser one of ten people on the subpoena which i discussed last night. after all the things nunberg

i thought his professions of loyalty to roger stone were fascinating because clearly he sees roger stone as connection with people pushing out the anti hillary -- for the russians it's so clear that you may think roger stone may be more at the center of this than seen before. he knows the little things that prosecutors turn into big things. >> he also knows what donald trump was doing in 2012, 2013, 2014, as he was building this political operation, but more importantly, as he was going to russia, as he was holding the miss universe pageant. sam nunberg was his political guy when a lot of these interactions with russia took place. >> one of the questions about donald trump has always been why did he repeatedlyo to russia tabig business deals. some of those big business deals never happened so what was going on in that relationship? what was he doing? what kind of money might he be asking for and at one point he seemed to suggest, sam, that he thought mueller was more interested in the trump organization than he was in the campaign. now, look, sam yesterday was so rambling and disoriented

he's a protege of roger stone, a pro protege of roy cohn and protege of roger stone. the ones he wishes were by his side." msnbc contributor barbara mcquaide, former u.s. attorney, joins our merry gang. let me start with you about the revelation, i suppose, that at least in sam nunberg's mind, bob mueller already thinks donald trump may be guilty of something. >> i don't know how much stack to put in that, i suppose he's drawing inferences based on the questions he was asked in the interview that he participated in last week. i know in that interview, from last week, he talked about how impressed he was with their preparation, their professionalism, their charts, the evidence that they asked him about. but i don't know that we can draw a lot of conclusions based on that small snippet of the investigation that he got a chance to observe. >> how about when you marry it, barbara, with the reporting out just this afternoon in the "washington post" that bob mueller is now interested in h talking to the president's lawyer, michael cohen, who crossed over into all of trump's

he was particularly outraged because of roger stone. because he's very close with roger stone. he's also close with steve bannon. and he believes they're really looking closely at roger stone's relationship with julian assange. he is kind of outraged by that. it doesn't make any sense to me that he wouldn't want to comply. >> what does this tell us about the mueller probe? >> that it is going down consequential lines of inquiry. whether he gets there, that's another question. you have questions that the illegaliality of it. that was part of story last week. on the question of collusion. the president, his allies, they want that question to disappear into the ether. he said at some point he doesn't believe they colluded. at other points, he told jake attempter that he believes carter page colluded. he believes roger stone colluded. the words made the former campaign aide, a witness to the special counsel, saying trump may have done something with the russians. that's not comment from a left wing commentator. he is now being interviewed and called before a grand jury. >> but a gu

given what he said yesterday, does that help roger stone? does it hurt roger stone? is there any credence to this idea that sam -- i mean, is it okay -- i don't know. what's the question? if he feels that way, can anybody point to him and say, i believe him the way that i believe susan? >> well, look, i don't think it matters what he thinks, quite honestly. i mean, i want to make one small point, which is, there are people all over the country in high-profile, low-profile, small, big cases who have to comply with subpoenas and have to talk about people who they're friends, have to give testimony against relatives. it's painful. it's hard. but that's how our justice system works. and that's what mueller and his team are thinking right now, not how does sam feel about this. i understand that it has a dramatic appeal and i thought your interview of him was incredible, the way you let him talk and then drew him out at the right moments. i mean, i was, mouth open the whole time and i'm not saying he shouldn't have been interviewed or shouldn't have talked, but in terms of

plus, new reporting on roger stone's contact with wikileaks. >> i actually have communicated with assange. >> the first results from pennsylvania. >> we need their support. >> mr. saccone, what is your message. >> when all in" starts right now. >> good evening from new york. i'm chris hayes. polls have just closed in that special election in pennsylvania's 18th congressional district, a district the president of the united states donald trump won by nearly 20 points just less than two years ago. despite that fact, the race has been extremely close with conor lamb widely seen as having a legitimate chance to defeat republican rick saccone. we'll monitor the results throughout the hour as the votes start coming in. the white house and gop has thrown everything at this race in hopes of avoiding a demoralizing and embarrassing loss. trump, mike pence, donald trump jr. all personally stumped for saccone and the gop dumped more than $10 million into the race. a massive amount of money for a congressional race. yet, lamb has been polling strongly as pennsylvania voters responded positively to hi

frankly just like roger stone used to do with me on air. i will mention briefly that roger stone also posted several new vulgar attacks on me personally as if he thinks this is, i don't know, some kind of personal feud. it is not. these are just factual questions. if he wants a personal spat, he'll have to find someone else for that. aubrey drake graham put it best, i've got to stay in my zone. you say we've been beefing. roger, you aon your own. check out a very special edition of the last word tonight at 10:00 p.m. eastern. up next, "hardball" credible. >> getting colder? let's play "hardball." >> good evening. i'm steve kornacki. there are new signs tonight that the already strained relationship between the united states and russia is reaching a combustible new phase. those tensions are now testing the relationship between president trump and the man he has stubbornly refused to criticize, vladimir putin after the united states expelled 60 russian spies from the c

is there any evidence that roger stone knew who he was communicating with? >> well, a lot of things about roger stone's presentations about his interactions with guccifer 2.0 are really questionable. they're probably going to come under increasing scrutiny in recent weeks. i can't tell you that stone knowledgeably knowingly wittingly communicated with a russian intelligence officer, but it's very, very curious about why stone got into contact with guccifer 2.0 and it's also an open question whether stone has disclosed all of these dms, all of the communications with guccifer 2.0. you'll recall as the house intelligence committee was essentially bifurcaing forever more on the russia inquiry, the democrats on that committee during internal meetings raised the point that they had not subpoenaed and acquired through subpoena from the logs of organizations like twitter which would have the actual communications on their servers, the actual records of these communications so at this point the disclosure he's made, you have to sort of wonder how selective it is. >>

55%. >> roger stone? >> yes. they can say whatever they want me abo about me. they're doing a terrible job. >> are they trying to do a coordinated hit job on you by saying about your state of mind? >> i don't know. this is the first time i've heard about this. they are more than -- they can do whatever they want. >> i wanted to give you chance to respond because it's something people are talking about. it's important you have a chance to respond to it, sam. >> i would once again say that sarah huckabee is a terrible press officer. trump has a 38% approval rating. that the republicans are going to lose the house in the midterm. that's a fact. they can say whatever they want about me. they have treated roger and me terrib terribly. roger won't say that. >> he won't. that's not what he said at all. when we reached out to him about what you've been saying that he's been treated terribly. i'm going to look for his exact quote. he said that i was briefly part of the trump campaign and have been the president's

that i've had with steve bannon and with roger stone? why does bob mueller need to see my e-mails when i send roger and steve clips and we talk about how much we hate people? >> sam, you were on the campaign early on. you were there when donald trump was deciding to announce he wanted to run for president. >> donald trump did not collude with the russians! it is the biggest joke, to ever think donald trump colluded with the russians. i can tell you, donald trump, when he was involved in conservative politics, did not halt his business, okay? donald trump did not want to attack hillary clinton early on in the campaign. he only wanted to attack jeb bush, because it wasn't going to be -- it wasn't going to be good for him, and had he not won the primary, he was probably going to endorse hillary clinton. >> sam, you were on this campaign -- >> i am not going to go over my e-mails, i'm not going to spend 80 hours because a bunch of fbi agents and a bunch of u.s. attorneys want me to -- to harass me. and you know, here's the thing. they've gon

what did roger stone know? it was literally, did you enter the building which makes me think they know he did enter the building because one lass to assume they were watching it and someone else entered the building and had a meeting with assuage and they're trying to figure out what he knows. he claims -- he said something publically that he did not enter the building. we will question his credibility. it was that one sentence that i think there's a lot of meaning behind. it was so specific about a visit to julian assuage. >> it was roger stone, michael, who claimed multiple times that he had contact with julian assuage and seemed to know ahead of time about the hack of the dnc and john podesta. he denied both. do you think stone is key to making the collusion case? >> i think he certainly may be a part of it. let me tell you these interviews and investigations, certainly when we talk about malloch or stone, these things don't happen just sort of willy dilly, off the cuff. they basically have some idea where t

but you do believe roger stone met with wiki sfleeks. >> no. i believe he told me he did. >> what did he tell you. >> i was trying to reach roger. we can talk 15 times a week or cannot reach him for two weeks. i said where have you been? he said i met with julian assange. >> now he says he was joking. here is what roger stone says about this this week to "the washington post." >> i wish him no ill will, sam can man eye cli and persistently call you. >> true, by the way. >> stone said recalling nunberg had called him on a friday to ask about his plans for the weekend. i said i think i'll go to london and meet with assange. the idea i would meet with him is ridiculous on its face. >> alisyn, in "the washington post" story, i did not come out and contact josh foss si and say i want to broadcast to the world. josh said they had somebody on background that said roger had told them he had met with julian assange, but roger's quote was directly discussing -- >> i know. i get it. >> i just want to explain that. >> you weren't the source on that. i get

i'm not saying roger stone is guilty, roger stone was involved. but that general area of questioning seems to be something that's on mueller's plate right now. >> anne, i should also point out i think one of the other reasons about sam nunberg being let go by the campaign was there were some controversial facebook postings he had made. >> that's right. that's right. >> racist postings on facebook that were unearthed. >> that's right. i didn't -- that's right. >> anne, how much does nunberg's public behavior tonight impact what the special counsel does next? do you back off, let this play out? do you nip whatever this is in the bud? obviously he's very publicly challenging the special counsel to do something. >> yeah, i think he is very publicly challenging the special counsel. it's also very clear they have interviewed him. they did a lengthy interview by his account, and now they've asked him to come to the grand jury, which means they believe he has both documents and oral testimony to give. so they want him in the witness box in the grand jury

stone and wikileaks and also it depends on what the relationship of the time was between roger stone and donald trump and the trump campaign. he was sort of i think in an informalal capacity during the times we're talking about but i don't think that matters if he was having direct communications -- although he denies it -- with the wikileaks people, had some knowledge and perhaps participation in the hacking of those e-mails or encouraging the hacking of those e-mails and then the other end was having communications with people who were in the trump campaign, you are getting closer. >> congressman adam schiff just said there is significant evidence, his words, to point to collusion. said they there's still work to be done on that issue, other issues, work that he said -- and i'm quoting him now -- we have not been allowed to do. what do you make of the committee republicans concluding there was no collusion and this the russian president, vladimir putin, wasn't trying necessarily to help president trump get elected? >> well, i think i agree with the folks who were on the screen earl

if there is communications with roger stone, and roger stone didn't do anything, okay, exonerate roger stone with your e-mails. >> ding ding ding ding ding. >> if there is e-mails about steve bannon and steve bannon didn't do anything, show the e-mails that exonerate steve bannon. i think ultimately what will happen is sam nunberg will appear before a grand jury. sam nunberg will comply with the subpoena. he is just going to make it difficult and he is going to flail his arms around. >> okay. so to go back, let's focus in on. he is -- he is saying things that seem incriminating for other people. i just want to walk through those to figure out what grains of salt. let's start with the president there. >> is a lot of interesting stuff that has come out of the interview that he had. and some of it focuses on, and this is what is interesting, because it's not just sam nunberg who says this about what your interviewers questions are. this is confirmed by other sources is that mueller is probing whether or not donald trump himself knew about the hacked democratic e-mails, the hillary clinton

with us carrol lining, one of the reporters behind the roger stone piece. also joinings, joyce vanessa. tim and the rest of the gang still with us herism big group with michael and michael as well. >> so, what our team basically broke this morning was that two different people that we've interviewed said that roger stone told them, at least in april or may, and possibly in june, but at least starting in april, that roger stone told them he was aware of a troef of e-mails that were going to be damaging to the democratic party and to some specific people, including john podesta. the fact that he said in this april of 2016, according to these individuals is striking because nobody really knew any e-mails had been hacked, stolen, on tanned. roger stone is an interesting conservator activist and has given a lot of shifting accounts about whether or not he had access with asuaje. he told these people that he had a contact with asuaje and that's how he knew this information. >> roger stone, among the people he spoke with is chuck todd. and i want to play a little

we as a committee can't take roger stone's word for things. we need to get from twitter because we can't be confident weigh get them from roger stone any private communications he had, direct messages had he with guccifer 2 or wikileaks and other witnesses that contradict roger stone should be brought before our committee. we should find out who is telling the truth. the republicans would like to put out a report that essentially says we asked roger stone and he denied it and therefore, there's no evidence to the contrary. that's not at investigation. that's the facade of an investigation. >> okay. they don't look good. why does the senate committee work in such a bipartisan way and richard burr works so well with mark warner? whereas the republicans on your committee don't look on the level? to use an old political term they look like toldies for trump. >> the leadership comes from the top. the leadership on our committee even during periods when he said he was recused comes from chairman nunes. he has seen his mission as carrying the water f

he doesn't want to see anything bad happen to roger stone and what roger stone had been up to and had been up to during the campaign, his contacts potentially with wikileaks and so on is important to the mueller investigation. and that is something they would want to talk to him about. if you listen to what sam nunberg had to say, it is obvious that he said i don't want to talk. and then gave these reasons as to why the mueller team wants to talk to him. he is essentially making the argument for the mueller team to talk to him. >> jim acosta appreciate it. i want to play you a sampling of what he said today. bear in mind, he is actually an attorney. >> it is surprising news here that you are not going to comply with the subpoena from the special counsel, can you tell us why? >> because was absolutely ridiculous. what they requested from me i was trying to do for the last two days. they wanted every communication that i had with roger stone and steve bannon who i talked to secretly. they asked for communication with carter page. are y do you think i would ever talk to that moron? >> wh

trump and roger stone. they don't want to know anything from me, because i wouldn't know anything about obstruction of justice. i wouldn't know anything. th it's been public through adam schiff and everybody else, they want to know the relationship roger had with julian assange. >> we can put up some of the key names. cohen, stone, bannon, manafort. did they ask you about each of those people? >> no, they did not. >> they didn't ask you about roger stone? >> excuse me, they asked me about roger stone, obviously, i didn't have a very close relationship with steve bannon, and my relationship with michael which i consider, i said to them, it's privileged, because he's a lawyer and i'm a lawyer. so i can't disclose things like that to them. >> one interesting thing about roger stone. everybody's trying to figure out, did he hurt himself by bragging too much about things he didn't do or did he disclose things that he did do. and we know that you are loyal to him, and you don't think i did anything wrong. in fair

roger stone moves around and says a lot of different things. i think his memory is selective. >> randy, i got to stop you, you just said he moves around. >> yes. >> you're moving around, i read you the statement, is it true or false. i'll read it again. >> go ahead and read it again. >> from the end of july through august, through the end of september, julian assange said it was about to public this material on the democrats which randy described as devastating to hillary. is that true or false. >> that's false. i think roger stone has selective memory right here. >> joyce, tie it all together and then to the ambassador. >> roger stone had remarkably good information about what was coming out of wikileaks. he predicted john podesta would have his time in the barrel and sure enough it came true. so roger stone, whether he wants to admit it or not clearly had linked with people who were linked to russians. whether or not that was apparent to anyone in the trump administration. and obviously this has underlaid this investigation from the start, it

nunberg has called roger stone a mentor, a father figure. and so the question will be just how much of these details did roger stone share with his mentee? >> as you are probably aware, yahoo! news is reporting that the obama national security staffers were ordered by susan rice to stop developing options to retaliate against russia's election interference. you worked for the nsc, you worked for president obama at the time. any truth to that? >> well, craig, i obviously can't speak to any covert measures, specific covert measures in development or may have been taken, but i would remind you of what the obama administration said at the end of december 2016 when he announced the punitive measures against vladimir putin. we announced a whole series of steps from sanctions to releasing some of the forensics data of these hacks to removing russian spies, to closing compounds. and we also says there were measures both announced and unannounced that would be part of this package. so -- but beyond that, craig, i don't think you'll find anyone who is

to get to roger stone. it's clear from nunberg's statement that he would do anything for roger stone. and roger stump was donald trump's closest advisor and stone was also paul manafort's partner back in the day. so stone, manafort, flynn, it strikes me that he's made quite a lot of are grprogress. >> you know if you look at what paul manafort was doing, he was working with roger stone taking all foreign clients that literally no one else would take. as a person who openly bragged about his link to julian assange, who's now caught up in the potential russian plot. take a look. >> first of all, i think julian assange is a hero. i think he's taking on the deep state, both republican and democrat. i expect you're going to see more from mr. assange, who again i think is a hero. we have a mutual acquaintance who is a fine gentleman. i happen to be one that thinks that assange is a hero. >> so wikileaks, one of the crimes was obviously stealing emails from the dna, tony podesta, stone may have had some knowledge

how much communication roger stone had with trump in 2016. roger always plays very coy about that. there's no question mueller is looking at roger stone, especially in the way he tipped the hand on the podesta e-mails ahead of time. so, if you wanted to try to figure out what was stone's role, was he in some way connected to wikileaks, was he some some way connected to the russians. one of the people you would look at communications, sam nunberg and roger stone i would imagine, just speculation, they would be texting or e-mailing each other multiple times a day for all of 2015 and all of 2016. those people are extraordinarily close. and stone, sam nunberg you might want to laugh off as not a central player. roger stone might be a central player in the question of collusion with russia, might be. >> we don't have any sense. we always talk about russian collusion as though it happened in the past. the truth is this is the most sort of pro-putin administration in modern american history. we don't have evidence these contacts aren't ongoing. it's possible he's protecting something more

tom, let's start with roger stone. would i be incorrect in assuming that he now seems to be a focus of mueller's investigation? >> well, katy, i'm not sure focus may not be the exact right word, but we know that he is getting some attention from bob mueller and that's what sam nunberg said to us yesterday on the record. he was asked questions about roger's professed contacts with julian assange and wikileaks, before those now-famous, infamous e-mails were leaked to the public through weeikileaks. >> so rogerstone stone is kind complicated character. he says one thing and claims a moment later he never said that thing or he was joking when he said that thing or lying when he said that thing. it's got to be something that's tough for investigators to nail it down. what are your hearing, not only from sam nunberg, but from your other source about what assange was claiming he did and -- i'm sorry, what stone was claiming he did and when he did it. >> well, it is a challenge to investigators. it's a challenge to reporters,

he's close to roger stone. and he says he's motivated -- >> there was a serious element to this, which was mueller is asking about roger stone and hacked e-mails. the 13 defended case that was indicted a couple weeks ago was the case about russian manipulation of social media. mueller has done nothing yet about the hacked e-mails. he hasn't charged any russians. he hasn't charged any americans. i think the fact that he wants to talk to nunberg now about stone and hacked e-mails suggests mueller is moving on to a possible case against someone and not necessarily stone to be sure but against the people who hacked john podesta's e-mails and hacked the dnc e-mails and that would be very significant. >> you see the focus there because he's asking for is this correspondence. >> correct. >> that's an important point. the white house can credibly say, look, he never worked here. he only worked on the campaign early on and is a stone prodigy. the play is what does roger stone know? roger stone has been connected with wi

>> no. >> has roger stone told you not to go to talk to the grand jury. >> no. >> has steve bannon told you not to talk to the grand jury? >> no. >> well that right there was interesting. it is what nunberg told me about what mueller might know about the president that might be the most explosive part of that interview. >> you sat there in that room being questioned by mueller's investigators. i want to hear directly from you. do you think that they have something on the president? >> i think they may. >> what? >> i think he may have done something during the election. but i don't know that for sure. >> why do you think that? >> i can't explain it unless you were in there. >> my colleague kristen welker asked press secretary sarah sanders before the nunberg charge in the briefing room moments after our interview ended. >> nunberg, the president's former campaign aid is refusing a subpoena by a grand jury and he said on msnbc moments ago, i think he, meaning the president, might have done something but i don't know for sure. >> he doesn't know for sure because he is incorrect. as we have

i'm not going too give them every e-mail i had with steve bannon and roger stone. i communicate with them every day. >> i think carter page colluded with the russians. i've told that you before. i think he could lewded with the russians. >> what i can show you online if you go to our facebook page is behind the scene shots and sam arriving and before and after the interview. as for what we learned today, bob mueller did not spend seven hours of his grand jurors time just to the make a point or intimidate mr. nunberg. a lot was discussed. we'll be reporting next week what we learn about it. that does it for "the beat." i hope you have a great weekend. "hardball" is next. >> big deal. let's play "hardball." >>> good evening. i'm chris matthews in washington. it's been a dizzying 24 hours for the white house with developments on multiple fronts. first, the story of the president and the porn star. president trump's personal lawyer used his trump organization e-mail days before the 2016 election to arrange to pay the adult film star, stormy daniels. then there is the c

that's a real -- that's roger stone. it was stone who connected paul manafort to the trump campaign which is an interesting detail given all that we know. during that campaign stone raised a lot of questions when he communicate online with russian cutouts and appeared to predict the hack of john podesta. this is what he tweeted in august 2016. "trust me, it will soon be to podesta's time in the barrel." later days before wikileaks released the podesta e-mails stone had a lot to say about its head julian assanging. > an intermediary met with him in london recently who is a friend of mine and a friend of his. a believer in freedom. and i am assured that the mother lode is coming wednesday. it wouldn't be an october surprise if i told you what it was. but i have reason to believe that it is devastating because people with political judgment who are aware of the subject matter tell me this. >> he was we should not off by two days. it came friday, not wednesday. today in an interview with chuck todd, stone distanced himself f