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tv   The Last Word With Lawrence O Donnell  MSNBC  March 2, 2018 10:00pm-11:00pm PST

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>> michelle goldberg, josh, tara thanks for joining me tonight. that's great. >> that does it for "all in." good evening. it's friday night. i am in for lawrence o'donnell. unglued. that is donald trump's current condition at least according to an inside source who just spoke to nbc news. and while many may say donald trump's presidency isn't exactly known for being very glued together to begin with, this week's chaos has been pretty intense even grading on any kind of, say, trump curve. think about the new reports that the mueller probe is now eyeing jared kushner and whether his debt and business issues drove any foreign policy corruption inside the trump white house. mueller's team asking witnesses about kushner's efforts to secure financing for his family's real estate properties. discussions during the transition from individuals from qatar, turkey, russia, china and the uae.
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we have more on that tonight. plus which country says it has evidence on kushner. right now i want to begin with our top story and that's the way that bob mueller's heat may be reshaping donald trump's inner circle. reports that trump wants his own family out. while trump is, quote, never told jared kushner they should keep serving in their roles, "the new york times" reports that actually he's privately asking chief of staff john kelly for help in moving them out. think about the intrigue and deception that's packed just into that single line of reporting. we have a president/father pushing to fire his kids through an intermediary while denying it to them. what's the point of that whole deception if kelly does fire the kids? the ploy lasts until the next family meal? as for jared kushner, his weak standing exposed this week when trump left in place chief of
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staff kelly's downgrade of kushner, his middle east envoy's access to intelligence. why does that matter? if jared kushner can't get trump to sign a piece of paper to keep his intel, how certain is he that he can get trump it help him keep his job? the intrigue does not mean that trump has been sitting idle. in fact he pledged new blanket tariffs on imports. >> we're going to be instituting tariffs next week. we'll be signing. it will be 25% for steel. it will be 10% for aluminum. and it will be for a long period of time. >> a long period of time. that's surprise announcement rattling the stock market, angering some allies. backdrop for this economic action was trump's other headaches and the report he is unglued came after hope hicks testimony to lawmakers.
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trump angry and gunning for a fight the sources say and he chose a trade war which may be why the announcement had no messaging remarks prepared. that is the scene leaked by insiders. those are people who say they want trump to succeed. he's pushing back. the trade wars are good and easy to win. maybe so are celebrity feuds because trump also took a shot at this guy. >> thanks so much. your show is so great. huge ratings. of course not as big as the ratings for my state of the union speech which was watched by 10 billion people. they say there's only seven billion people on earth, so where the other three billion come from, illegals, i don't know. >> donald trump with all this going on that i just told you
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about began the day blasting alec baldwin and arguing that instead actor daryl hammond should play him. i'm not going to read the whole tweet because it's not that news worthy based on its content. it's only mentionable based on its context because we are bearing witness to a man who built his career as an entertainer playing a character. now promoted to the top job with real power, real things to do. and what is he focused on today? the other entertainers who play his character. it would all be funny if it all weren't so ominous. joining me is susan page, austin, and professor of economics and nira. it's friday night. i begin with you. maybe you can make us all feel better or at least give us your truth. >> sadly, i do not think i'm
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going to make anyone feel better. i worked for two presidents. i worked even for a president who was going through an impeachment and i've never seen anything like the spectacle of this week. and the idea that the president of the united states would start a trade war kind of off the cuff in which we do have allies, our actual allies now discussing retaliation against different elements of american industry from harley-davidson to bourbon and from kentucky strikes me as a kind of lunacy we haven't seen in my lifetime. >> address me like i know nothing about tariffs. >> okay. we might be in a trade war. we fired a shot.
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it was intended to be shot at china. but now you come to find out china's not even one of the major steel exporters to the united states. the biggest steel exporters to the united states are our military allies, canada, germany, japan, korea. so the question is how do those countries react to us doing this? hopefully they will keep this measured. but i guess i'm going to object, your criticism of the president for, at a time like this being concerned about "saturday night live" i'm begging the people in the white house to get the "saturday night lives" and just show him reruns, get his thinking off of policy. because when he thinks about policy, it's quite terrifying. >> let me read to you in all fairness to the president his rebuttal. i want to mention some of it is in all caps. we must protection our country and workers and steel industry. >> is this fair to the president?
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>> and then in all caps, if you don't have steel, you don't have a country. as you know, austin, because i'm sure you're hip with the internet, if it's written in all caps, it's shouted. >> look, i don't think the president is fully up on the historic precedents that trade wars lead to depressions, but i wish somebody there would go tell him that. i think this is the consequence of having 100 plus people who don't have a security clearance so they can't read the intelligence briefings and they are going to make decisions. i understand that they made this trade decision without even telling the staff the major economic advisers, didn't even know he was going to announce it. >> here's alec baldwin's response to this. yes, this is real life. agony though it may be, i'd like to hang in there for the impeachment speech, the resignation speech, the good stuff we've all been waiting
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for. maybe you can tie it all together for us. is that the feud donald trump wants? because he does like attacking the famous people, the people he never really felt fully accepted by according to a lot of accounts of his life and now as president he feels further spurned by which in his own mind is kind of a tragic sad thing and how do you tie that together with the reports i just mentioned which says something very serious for people whose jobs are affected here? the steel stuff is real because this is real consumer issues and real jobs is that this was all according to the reporting partly a way for him to soothe himself and find a new fight with all the other fights he's apparently losing this week. >> neera said she worked for two presidents. i've covered six presidents. there have been times when previous presidents have had rough patches. you think about the economic crisis president obama faced or the aftermath of 9/11 or the impeachment period for president
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clinton. what makes this different it seems to me is the crisis that this white house faces is almost entirely self-created. it raises many -- it's funny in some ways it raises some serious concerns. the most serious concern is how will this white house react when a real crisis erupts, either an economic process. that will happen during president trump's term in office. and it just -- this is what made this week particularly crystallize concerns about the ability of this white house to respond to the big problems that we know are ahead. we don't know exactly what they're going to be, but we know there will be a crisis ahead. how will they handle it? >> i guess i would say i totally hear susan and she's right but donald trump seems to create these crises. one can argue about the merit of
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taf tariffs. the idea that you would roll them out, not tell your allies or your state department or your open economic council. just willy-nilly state it out there, give very little justification. i mean, the possibilities here for what it's going to do to jobs and costs and inflation, prices for consumers and the idea that he just sort of willy-nilly did that, that's what's deeply worrying. he's creating possible crises for the country. we hire a president to protect us from emergencies or problems, not to create them for us. >> well, you put it so well. one second. just to follow-up on that point, does is sort of bum you out or is it kind of remarkable that we're living through a period of time where if you have whatever it is, 300 million people in the united states, you have one of the most important far reaching job, a job the presidency
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affects everyone else and you're it's being filled by someone who has almost no interest whatsoever in how to do the job? >> yeah. and i think austin is right. when he's actually interested in policy, it doesn't seem to go well. i mean, i would prefer feuds with alec baldwin or response to oppra winfrey. when prices go up for cars, that could be deeply worrying. what i'm optimistic is more and more americans seem this is insane and ridiculous and we'll have the midterm elections and hopefully there will be an actual check on this behavior. >> austin? >> look, take a step back. you can see, you're not blind, the president of the united
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states has massive impulse control problems. the president united states has impulse control problems is about the most terrifying thing that has ever happened in this country. so i don't quite know how to process it. the fact that they're now talking about firing the president's children has me wondering who are they going to get to replace them? i mean, how deluded would you have to be to walk into the middle of this situation? >> to that point, look at this reporting about jared kushner and sort of his falling reputation within the white house. "washington post" says colleagues now privately mock kushner as a shadow of his former self one official likening the work of kushner's office of american innovation to headlines in the onion. it's a terrible news website. of course as you know, susan, it's not that private in the
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mocking if it's in the paper and on the news. >> there's a civil war going on as there has been almost from the start. certainly jared kushner has been a combatant in that against some figures. the chief of staff john kelly seems to prevail over jared kushner at the moment. there have long been speculation that ivanka and jared kushner would move back to new york. that's certainly a possibility. but it is and in fact there are multiple people at the white house who might be interested in other jobs. you can imagine that after how exhausting it must be after a year in this white house. but i think it also make a good point -- >> it's exhausting just to be near the white house. >> just to cover it, yes. imagine doing it. it's got to be even harder. i think that the idea that it will be hard to find people with experience, high quality people with experience in washington and policy making to take those jobs, i think that is, again, one more thing to worry about when you think about the good of
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the country and the need to have a well-functioning white house. >> austin, go ahead. >> as you might imagine, i totally agree with that sentiment. i mean, i think it's not to -- we should understand understate the damage that this trade war would do if they actually enact it. i'm hopeful that he got himself worked up and when people start telling him wait a minute, this is going to lead to thousands of americans losing their jobs and the price of cars and soup and trailers and all the people who are affected by that, it's going to be a negative, i'm hoping that he backs away from it and it becomes one more of the things that he's said that he doesn't care to do. if we're going to have a segment talking about the beginnings of recession in this country. >> that's a major statement given that the economy is one thing, whether he gets credit for it or not given that these gains have been going since the previous administration policy, the one thing that might have
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been helping him. as for your hope, austin, now is the part of the segment where i read you a new thing from donald trump. he says when a country taxes our products coming at 50% and we tax the same product coming into our country at zero, all caps, not fair or we'll be starting reciprocal taxes, the same thing as they will charge us. have no deficit. that's where he's at. he's not backing down. >> there is a reason to be concerned about the u.s. competition with china and the things that china does. i take that point. what's disconcerting to americans and should be disconcerting to really people around the world is that we have a president that sort of shoots from the hip on these things and doesn't communicate them to our own allies who are now exploring retaliations. perhaps there were some other step he could take.
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i think the big issue here about the chaos is that we have had a year and a half of chaos. there have been moments where the chaos seems less or the chaos seems more, but essentially, i mean, talking about jared kushner, he was fighting with steve bannon a year ago. now there's some new person he's fighting with. these people are not putting the public interest and american interest ahead of their own petty squabbles and ahead of just being normal functioning white house staff who care about what actually happens to the american people. >> you make a great point and i go to susan to close it out. help us, susan. i think what neer adjust said is significant. it is the pettiness of the information chain that we have. why do we know so much bad stuff about so many of these people? why did we know so much about jared kushner's conflicts of interest? if you read "fire and fury" or you look at the reporting we have or how many sources are essentially i.d., we only know
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all this because they all leak it out against each other. >> it's like competitive leaking. we know so much through the leaking and through the tweeting by the president. we know so much about the internal workings of this white house that we haven't known about a previous one and i think that has contributed to a really deep sense of unease on the part of americans. americans think the economy is doing well. they say we're in a recovery. yet they still 60% say this country has gotten off track. >> austin, i thank you. the others i'm going to see later in the show. up next we look at why jared kushner's bad week is getting worse because mueller probing his business relationships. which country might be willing to help out the mueller probe when it comes to kushner. this nbc report, vladimir putin on russian's election interference if that megyn kelly exclusive. my digestive system used to make me feel sluggish
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jared kushner's foreign business ties are influencing white house policy. he's asking about kushner's efforts to get money for family real estate properties including discussions with individuals repping qatar, turkey, russia. the issue is did kushner -- what's the impolitical indication?
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the idea is that kind of conduct, if it did occur, would form the basis of criminal charges. take qatar. this is where kushner met with the nation's former prime minister at trump tower about investing in the property, the debt ridden 666 fifth avenue. after the deal fell flew the white house stronged a punishing block aid against qatar. maybe that blockade was some kind of kushner retaliation. there are also other possible innocent explanations and bob mueller is not going to take the word of just anyone. he's not going to do that without evidence. but if there is evidence that kushner's debts are financing goals corrupted u.s. government policy, you bet mueller's looking for it. joining me now is attorney mya wiley and natasha, a staff
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writer at "the atlantic". you covered this story in and out. what do you think of these new facets of kushner? >> well, it's entirely unsurprising. kushner came into this administration having not actually divested himself from any of his -- from the vast majority of his interest in kushner companies. he came into the transition period and into the white house administration with this 666 fifth avenue debt very, very heavily on his mind. >> does it ever weird you out that the building that they owe now close to a billion on is literally lucipher's address? >> there's been a number of new york jokes. >> if there were a movie, that will be too much. >> it's been like the devil on their shoulders. it's been impossible to get rid of. they're over $1 billion in debt and they're looking for a wealthy investor to revamp that
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building which they bought over a decade ago now. they reached out to qatar. they even reached out to russia. jared kushner had that meeting with the ceo of a sanctioned russian bank in december and of course that was around the time that he tried to set up that back channel to moscow. >> let me take it to mya on the legal part of a lawyer. there are things people do that are down right stupid that aren't crimes. when you look at this, do you think mueller really sees an actual federal statute here? >> oh, yeah. there actually is a criminal conflict of interest law and so if it is as it appears and we don't know and mueller may not know yet, there's no question that there could be a criminal violation here. i think the problem for the white house is that anything that looks like there's a connection between an interest and a decision you make creates the optics that you're dirty.
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and any investigator that gets ahold of that is going to look for public corruption and when you already have an investigation with any number of potential law violations, of course you're going to go down that track. >> what would it look like? knowingly trying to abuse the position? >> that's right. if you are a person with the government job, unless you're the president. jump would be exempt. jared kushner and ivanka trump are not. if you are gaining financial interest in change for your position of office, that will be a conflict of interest. >> this is all against the backdrop of witnesses leaking of what they've been asked about so it gives a hint to what mueller is looking at. i on my show that airs at 6:00 p.m. had a rare thing and you were there for it of an aide to
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donald trump who had come straight from basically his mueller interview special he talked to us about his experience. and then he made news by basically implicating donald trump jr. in a problem. take a look. >> i think it's probable that that meeting with don junior i am sure don junior reported to his father what he heard. i don't think there's anything wrong with that. >> you think don junior told his father everything he was hearing of getting offers of dirt? >> yes, i'm sure he did. >> i'm sure too. >> i'm still sure. that's what i'm thinking. i was thinking oh my god, i cannot believe he just said that and does he have a law degree for real? because it's not that that alone would establish the crime. i mean, the fact that donald trump was told by his son hey, look, we can get some dirt on clinton and use it for the campaign. that in and of itself wouldn't necessarily prove the violation.
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but it certainly establishes one of the elements that you need to get to that. >> and on top of that, don junior reportedly testified to congress that he didn't tell his father. >> absolutely. but we already know that there have been a number of inconsistencies in this investigation. >> does it surprise you how much we are learning, and i mentioned this point to some degree in the top of the show, how much we're learning from the actual principles? in the new jay z. album he says why do you alltel on yourself? it seems some of these people are publicly telling on themselves. >> i think two things are happening and i'm guessing here. two things appear to be happening. one is an incredible ignorance of the law. and enough arrogance that they don't actually get really good and follow really good legal advice. >> ignorance and arrogance? do you agree? >> totally. i also think there's a certain degree of warfare going on between different factions of trump loyalists or people who have been kicked out of the campaign. i think it is important to note that sam definitely has a bone
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to pick with people in trump's orbit. that being said, with regard to everything that we already know about donald trump jr., his lifetime of trying to seek approval from his father pretty much not doing anything without letting his father know about it, it's been reported that's the case, it would be very difficult to believe if he had received an e-mail from this publicist offering dirt on hillary clinton and didn't tell his father. >> you don't see don junior as a highly independent operator in the trump landscape? >> no. i think it's pretty well understood even when donald trump was just running his organization and donald trump jr. was helping him do that, there was no decision made without donald trump's approval. >> i was just kidding. i mean, come on. >> can we make one other point? ivanka trump has the same problem that jared kushner has. she has -- she actually had a
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meeting in april, back in april with the president of china and the exact same day she had that meeting she had -- her company got three trademark approvals from china. >> right. thank you both. this was very interesting. up next this nbc report with vladimir putin talking about the 13 russians indicted in the mueller probe. how does putin respond? and he is in it or is he out of it? we're going to try to figure out where donald trump actually landed after all the flip flops on the important issue of gun control. as born to move. 3 toddlers won't stop him. and neither will lower back pain. because at a dr. scholl's kiosk he got a recommendation for our custom fit orthotic to relieve his foot, knee, or lower back pain, from being on his feet. dr. scholl's. born to move. i'm the one clocking in when you're clocking out. sensing and automatically adjusting to your every move. does your bed do that? i'm the new sleep number 360 smart bed. let's meet at a sleep number store.
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let's put the russia probe to the side for a minute. we can even put to the side the debates over how much impact russians may have had on trump's victory. let's consider actual u.s. foreign policy with russia tonight right now after trump declined to issue any response this week to vladimir putin's rather major public threat that russia has, quote, invincible nuclear weapons that can reach anywhere in the world. that is the state of play right now between russia and the u.s. in context for what we're going to show you which is more of nbc exclusive interview with vladimir putin who has denied any russian government involvement after u.s. charges of election meddling. what about russian citizens, though, who have been indicted in that special counsel probe? nbc's megyn kelly asked him today. >> translator: we cannot respond to that if they do not violate russian laws. >> would this violate russian law? >> translator: i have to see first what they've done. give us materials. give us information. >> hacking into the democratic national committee, creating
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interference in our election by creating bots that spread false information on twitter, on facebook, spreads misinformation, when it comes to our presidential election. that's what i'm talking about. >> translator: with all due respect for you personally, with all due respect for congress, you must have people with legal degrees. 100% you do. people who are well educated who must understand that we russia cannot prosecutor anyone if they have not violated russian law. if you don't have a legal degree, i can explain to you. >> i do. >> translator: then you have to understand what it takes is an official request to the general prosecutor of the russian federation. give us a document. give us an official request. >> you said that the last time and now i'm back with an indictment. >> translator: this has to go through official channels, not through the press or yelling and hollering in the united states congress. >> we'll have much more of megyn kelly's reporting from russia in the coming days. joining me now is jeremy bash
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and neera back with us. jeremy, megyn kelly does have a law degree. i have a law degree and understand that there is not an open extradition process that works very well with russia. what did you make of what putin is doing in that interview? >> he's denying, making counter accusations and he referenced somebody, the general prosecutor. he said send the papers to my general prosecutor. if that title sounds familiar is because it was the general prosecutor who rob goldstone and na tallia promised that dirt on hillary clinton. >> are you talking about the prosecutor? >> yes, the individual who was going to be allegedly presenting information that was going to be the russian government's effort to -- >> you're making the very
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important point that even in what you're calling the reference to go back to someone who would potentially allegedly be a part of this international conspiracy approximate. >> right. so what putin is saying is talk to my person who is one of the people involved in interference in our election. if we're talking about getting russians extradited to the united states it makes no sense because it was putin's inner circle. >> when i heard about this interview and then saw the snippets of the interview, what we should be focused on because vladimir putin just like donald trump is excellent at making us chase other shiny objects like what the extradition process is, et cetera. i mean, the reality is that we know that the russians interfered with our election and president trump has declined to
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do a single thing about this. we are in week after week after week in which the president of the united states is defying the congress by protecting russia and refusing to do the sanctions, the russian sanctions that were specified by an act of law. and on top of that, putin is making additional threats of some kind of new form of weapon that will underminor actually makes america less safe. he has visual imagery of targeting parts of the united states. in a normal administration the president of the united states would respond to that. but i think we are essentially seeing the quid for the pro quo which was donald trump was helped by the russians to become president of the united states and has done nothing to stop their aggression against the united states and against our interests around the world. >> and the consequence of course is that putin feels totally
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emboldened. he is not fearful at all of the consequences of his action. he can go out there and make accusations against us. we can roll out new nuclear weapons and he feels like he has a clear playing field and he's gotten absolutely nothing in the form of deterrents from the united states of america. >> what would be the right response of the u.s. president given the nuclear threat. >> i think the president should go out and say these weapons do not threaten us and they violate the national arm agreements and we have a strong deterrent capability and if you try to develop these weapons, we will respond. >> i have an idea. why doesn't he implement the sanctions? we have sanctions for what they did in our elections. step one, pretty basic could be just to implement them. that would have some harm on the russia economy. >> that's a very important fair point. at this point i think what
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you're putting forward tonight is your view that this essentially is a man churian candidate as president. are you sure you would feel that way with your role being on the losing side of the 2016 election? >> i think what we're seeing in front of us and it's so obvious we don't focus on it is that we know that the russians contacted the trump campaign to help them. we know that they attacked hillary clinton's campaign. and we know that the president has refused to take any action to sanction russia. and not just on this issue but on syria. >> and the reality is just that we are living in a very dangerous world because now the russians have these weapons and the united states can't do anything about it. >> wow. have a good weekend, everybody. >> sorry. >> we've got to report it and hear it.
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thank you very much. up next, another important issue that you know lawrence has talked about. donald trump began the week lunching with the nra. he ended the week having dinner with the nra. what does this mean for gun reform and the control he talked about midweek? that's next.
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>> you can take the guns away immediately from people you can judge easily are mentally ill like this guy. the police saw that he was a problem. they didn't take any guns away. that could have been policing because taking them away anyway. whether they had the right or not. >> whether they had the right or not. that statement upset the nra which released a response that was apparently trying to issue some sort of sick burn against their ally donald trump. because they said his stance was, quote, great tv but bad policy that would not keep our children safe, end quote. republicans questioned how committed the president is to protecting what they view as second amendment rights. >> i'll have to admit that the idea of taking a person's property before the due process, that did take my breath away a little bit. it doesn't work that way in america. but look, i think there's an old saying about this president which is take him seriously, not
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necessarily literally. >> we all remember that and it kind of applies. because within a day of president trump calling for that gun confiscation, he scheduled a meeting with the nra in the oval office and chris cox their director attended the meeting and said i had a great meeting with trump and the vice. we all want safe schools, mental health reform. then you see it there the #living together in harmony. does the president want to do what he said or is this another flip flop to make the nra happy in the answers do matter and we'll discuss them right after this. o lose stubborn belly fat. the roasted core wrap. 3, 2, 1... not cool. freezing away fat cells with coolsculpting? now that's cool! coolsculpting safely freezes and removes fat cells with little or no downtime. and no surgery.
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i'm a fan of the nra. no bigger fan. i'm a big fan of the nra. but that doesn't mean we have to agree on everything. it doesn't make sense that i have to wait until i'm 21 to get a handgun but i can get this handgun at 18. i'm just curious what you did in your bill. >> we didn't address it, mr. president. >> because you're afraid of the nra, right? >> real tough guy. joining me now is john allen, national political for nbc news. back with us susan page. john, you are familiar with projection, yes? >> i am. >> did you see any of it in that tough guy meeting where he actually is addressing the people on a bipartisan basis by the way who tried to actually do something about gun control because there are a lot of
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people who think there are things that can be done and he accuses them of being afraid of the nra which he's taken his late night meetings with? >> well, i'm not a psychologist. what i can say having watched that is what the president did was effectively scramble the board. pick up the playing board and throw all the pieces in the air. you heard republicans reject it. he rolls out this plan. plan. they say it is a lemon and now a few days ago, there was a lot of momentum for this relatively modest bill that would shore up the background check system. now there's no urgency about that on capitol hill. people were confused about where the president stands. for right now, gun owners continue to be pretty happy that there is no plan to move forward with any plan for gun control. >> i'm curious, susan about, your view in the context of this very interesting poll your paper has out.
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>> we asked people in the elections in november, do you want to elect a congress that mostly stands up to president trump or a xong mostly cooperates? >> 2-1 registered voters said they would like the elect a congress that stands up to president trump. this is alarming news for republicans and it is a little bit of a surprise because traditionally, america wants government that cooperates and gets things done. in this case, americans have concerns about president trump and his leadership on various issues and they're looking for a xong will stand up to him. and i think it is entirely possible that's what they're going to get. >> take a listen to, on the same vein, to fox anchor greg gutfeld talking about whether the president makes any moves here. >> if there is a republican who moves to the middle, you know it will be trump because he's a populist. and a populist, when a populist hears somebody say don't take
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away my guns, he'll say i'm with you. if somebody else says get those guns away from this creep, he'll say i'm with you. the pop lar is with a popular opinion and if there are two opinions, he will say yes to both of them. >> not a big reader, doesn't seem the understand the actual political definition of the word populist. but i wonder what you think of that analysis and if that means the only way to get any gun bill through would be to catch donald trump on the right day. have him sign and it then he couldn't unsign it. you can't take it back once you sign it into law. >> i think his point, the president does like to be liked. >> that's what populism means. >> well, that's not my definition of populism. >> don't do that. these words. they have definitions. >> all right. look. what i thought was fascinating
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about what the president did, what he thought was popular at that moment was, i'm going to roll out a plan that says we'll take guns first. ask questions later. and then republicans on capitol hill were first to deal with a president who just launched an assault on the second, fifth and tenth amendments in one phrase. >> fair. it was not artful. if you want to be fair to the process, there is a set of procedural rules about the confiscation of property. but it goes deeper than that. it goes to, there are overwhelming majorities for certain types of gun reform and we did seem to see something coming out of florida for a moment there. >> we have a concensus for background checks on assault weapons. there's a two-thirds of americans, 75%, in some cases, 90% of americans agree that they would support these actions.
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it is really the politics that's paralyzed. not the views of americans. >> very well put. and we wanted to make sure to hit this weflgt going on this week, has the very important zming the president's every looks on it, whatever you want to call it, very notable. thank you both. have a good weekend, guys. we have one more thing here. tonight's last word is next. [burke] at farmers, we've seen almost everything so we know how to cover almost anything. even "close claws." [driver] so, we took your shortcut, which was a bad idea. [cougar growling] [passenger] what are you doing?
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the night's he true last word goes to some of the moments we thought you should see in this week's late night tv. >> true story, white house director hope hicks reportedly admitted to investigators that she told some white lies on behalf of president trump. yeah. then hicks admitted that was a white lie and in fact she actually makes up [ bleep ] all the time. >> the level of crazyness and viciousness in the movies, i think we have to look at that, too. maybe we have to put a ratings system on that. >> well, if you're looking for fresh ideas, that guy, he's your man. yes, why don't we have some sort
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of ratings systems on movies? >> according to cnn, the chief white house calligrapher now has greater access to information than senior advise or jared kushner. after kushner's security was downgraded, said the calligrapher -- >> that's tonight's last word. you always find me being nights my show, "the beat." we're launching a new weekly segment called the realist. so tune in for that. and we have some special guests. if you want to find me online where we have highlights in the show, including that interview i showed. what it was like in bob mueller's interview room. facebook.com/the beat withari. now let's me tell you what's up next. brian williams talking to stephanie about her new trump reporting.
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plus, general barry mccaffrey will be talking about the new putin statements. a lot the unpack. the 11th hour with brian williams is up next. tonight the president's problems fly south with him to florida. after a week of resignations, reversals on policy and a description of his state of mind as unglued. plus, the slow motion takedown of jared kushner. the questions about how he does his job without the right security clearance. the reports his own father-in-law may want him out. and new nbc reporting. "the 11th hour" on a friday night begins now. good evening once again from our nbc news headquarters here in new york. day 407 of the trump administration. president trump is at his florida resort after a week of extraordinary turbulence that
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seems to signify a deepening crisis than some of the previous rocky weeks in this white house. to begin the russia investigation appears to have taken on a new kind of momentum. today nbc news wants to know, if rocky week of the white house. nbc learned that mueller wants to know if jared kushner's business dealings was foreign nationals ended up influencing the administration's policies. that comes on other nbc reports this week that the special counsel also wants to know what donald trump knew abouts t the release of stolen dnc e-mails and mueller is looking at criminal charges for russians who carrying out hacking and leaking information hurting the democrats back in 2016. news that the mueller investigation may include a determined focus on the president and the senior adviser happens to be a son-in-law appears to be of an implosion of