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 the west wing powered center of

jared kushner and ivanka trump and hope hicks resigns suddenly on wednesday. our colleague nicole wallace detailed the cascade of events involving jared kushner that sets in motion his downfall. >> witnesses jared kushner's two weeks collapse has been watching a play. the whole ordeal breaks it down to five acts. first, act one, the knee-capping. it started when kushner lost his security clearance of a critical blow to so many responsibilities. act two, the humiliation, on tuesday, foreign government kisskis discussed way to release kushner. on wednesday, the editorial boards suggested that cushnkush

should step down and act four is the plot. then fact five and this is the most consequential, torture trump. the "times" reporting trump is frustrated with kushner who he sees is a liability. >> further according to the w g washington post, the president is not happy of all the attention that his son-in-law is getting. the president quote, "also, new this week everything might be better for them if they simply gave up their jobs and return to new york." new york times go further as trump discussed his departure from the white house. the president tries to navigate family issues. he's attempting to deal with policy issues, of course, at the same time and among the more pressing of what to do about gun

violence in our country, it has been more than two weeks now since the parkland shootings. not only the white house having any new legislation on guns, the president sent his party to shock when he made this remark this week. >> take the firearm first and then go to court. it takes so long to go to court and get the due process procedures, i like taking the guns early, take the guns first and go to due process second. >> he did not stop there. the next day, he goes against everything the republicans party discussed for trade. that's not the kind of thing you want to spring on the chairman of the senate finance committee especially when it happens to be republican senator orrin hatch of utah. >> frankly we don't win by

assessing tariffs. i don't know who's advising him but i have a good idea. the fact the matter is it is the wrong advise. >> it is impossible to know what next week will bring from this white house but earlier today in this very same studio on this network, former cia, chief john brennan, shared this. >> it is no secret to anybody that donald trump is very ill prepared and unexperienced in terms of dealing with matters ahead of state needs to do with. i think this is now coming to -- we really have rough borders ahead. >> that gets your attention. for more, let's bring in your panelists and our msnbc's

analyst, julia ainsley and peter from the great state of florida. peter, i would like to begin with you, mar-a-lago rules are now in effect. by that, we mean the president enters the warm baths of family friends and fayipaying guests w forms the tabloid and back donald trump can sometime informing his twitter habits. >> he's not staying the whole weekend, he's coming back to washington tomorrow for a different kind of dinner. that's with the enemy of the american people, the media. gridiron dinner this year. he skipped it last year. this year he's going to go. that's an interesting affair that the president of the united states roasted by members of the media which he had engaged last year. well, it will be fun, well, fun is not the right word. >> their model is to singe and

never burn. we'll see if it remains to that. julia, can you run us through the cheat sheet version of what we learned today along the line of mueller and kushner. >> what we are doing here is connecting two things and we are saying mueller is looking into this and we have known for some time that jared kushner has questionable over seas business dealings and we have known for some time that there were concerns of how he was running business at the white house. what we were saying today that mueller is looking into whether or not those business dealings with people from turkey and cutter influenced his decision making in the white house and a cheap example of that that clears it all up and brings it home is the idea that he met a man named known as lbj. kushner was trying to secure the

financing of the leverage in debt, real estate avenue that he had in new york. that deal went south. hbj pulled out the financing and as a result, the catarris believed that kushner retalia retaliated. now, of course, kushner would say that is not why that policy went to place at all. there is a belief that there is some sort of retaliation or favoritism going on from jared kushner influencing white house policies as a result of these business billings and that's what mueller is looking in to. >> so much of this comes down to this one address in manhattan.

you can stone from here. congressman, looking back over the sculpt of this week which is not insignificant, we are going to go into some details later in the hour. what was the most notable event to you? >> the national security implications. it is easy to equate so many of these controversies. we have to look at the developments of the kushner's investigation and we cannot over look statements by vladimir putin's. just during this week the head of russia suggested that he has been undermined nearly 30 years of american national security strategy, what did we hear from donald trump? we saw him not responded to russia and criticized "saturday night live" and alec baldwin. we saw meet privately with the nra to walk back public statements and he's surrounding himself by staffs under investigation or indictment including his own family and his chief of staff suggests that he made a deal with the devil and his economic adviser is not sure

how much longer he can last and his attorney general has to pledge his attorney. his va secretary is under investigation of financial priority. a firm that probably has not ever been in history, someone so unprepared to take the reigns of the office of the presidency and it matters because it has national security consequences and perhaps it already has. >> as we said that, y that, it attention. the west wing, i know many of them talk to you and often. what's on fear and loathing. how do they recruit to fill some of these jobs. >> fear and loathing are heading down a photo finish. they are both predominantly emotions right now inside the white house. staffs there who are upset of

various aspects. you can understand why it must be difficult to work in the white house when you sefeel be seized by these things. a lot of people who came to work for the white house doing things that's good for the country and cut taxes. they're not able to focus on these priorities because they are constantly dealing with income. they are looking to see how they could get out the door. you don't see a whole lot of people coming in the doors who are top flight people. there are a lot of people around washington and loyalists and people been in parties and their whole lives. they're seeing what's happening of the people that's there. >> this is after all of the end of the day of governing and things like national security. this president is so kind of comfort level oriented compared to all of those who have gone before them. you take keith schiller, the

head of the security detail from new york and hope hicks, ditto, someone he would talk to many, many times a day. they're gone from the equation so they are informed concerns of the boss. >> i think it is exactly right. it is smart to mention schiller, he's somebody that the president really lean on and felt he can trust, hope hicks is in in the same category. 34% turnover in the first year alone has already two months in the first year and their numbers have gone up. some of the people who's been around the president the longest, the one that he's known and trusted and put a lot of investment in. and people coming in knows well. he's not likely build a comfort lef

level for quite a while. he's isolate inside his own building. >> julia, take what we have seen happens this week, what do you believe could be next and yes, i do try to get you to answer this question every week. >> you do, you know another thing that we reported this week and i reported along with my colleague is the fact that mueller now has enough or is preparing and gathering information that could lead to an indictment on the russian hacking. that's the heart of this investigation how russia was able to gain access to john podes podesta's e-mail, and the key here if we are looking ahead is wondering are there going americans whether they are named or not, who were named in that indictment. that'll really get at the heart of all of this. everything that's going on with jared kushner and his role in the mueller investigation also

is really interesting especially as we think about the original mandate that mueller had which is to look into possible collusion between the trump campaign and russia and anything else that may arise. what that tells us is that these business dealings are something that arose during the investigation. it also begs a question that what else has risen or what other names do we not know that mueller has already cooperated and there are so much beneath the surface here that it is hard to predict. if i am looking at one next thing, it would be something on the hacking that the russians played into. >> congressman and intentionally loaded of questions. how did the gop agenda advanced to today? >> listen, what did not happen is over sight. you dance with the defrvil, you will get burned. we are seeing the investigation

of kushner is a model of what mueller is looking at donald trump. donald trump is unraveling because he has the front row seat to see the vulnerability of jared kushner and he knows it could be him soon. >> i cannot thank you guys enough to show up and starting off our conversation on a friday night. >> coming up, stephanie ruhle with her exclusive reporting for a fight left one of his aids describing him as unglued and later with the sheer volumes of headlines just this week alone, you may not believe what broke three days ago, all that and more as we get underway on a friday night. you know what's awesome? gig-speed internet.

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we have exclusive new reporting on the circumstances surrounding president trump's decision on tariffs on steel and aluminum imports that could start a trade war. our colleagues, it was what it seemed to be in the moment, quote," according to two officials, trump's decision to launch a trade war was born out of anger and a result of a broken internal process that has failed to deliver him consensus view that represents the best advise of his team. the president became, "unglued."

hope hicks testimony to lawmakers investigating russia's interferen interference. trump, the two officials said was angry and gunning for a fight and she chose trade war. the president's announcement on thursday caused more volatility in the markets. at this point, president trump does not seem to mind, he wrote on twitter today. "when a country usa is losing billions of dollars on trade with every country it does business with, trade wars are good and easy to win. example, when we are down $100 billion with a certain country and they get cute, don't trade anymore, we win big. it is easy. here to talk about that stephanie ruhle at the 9:00 a.m. hour here on msnbc.

she came from the investment banking war. and our national political reporter for bloomberg. stephanie, what's wrong with the president's reasoning and why are you smiling? >> first of all, there is a huge difference between a trade deficit and a budget deficit so when he gives you this is easy, let me break it down, he's breaking nothing down. what's stunning is how all of this happened. he was on hedge and unglued. the russia investigation coming down hard and jeff sessions. and remember he does not have rob porter anymore to block a lot of the nonsense that's coming in and that's when wilbur ross finds his way for the president and says i got this trade war. >> you are saying and do i note that you think that's the duration of his commerce secretary?

>> i have seen internal white house documents from the last 48 hours where wilbur comes in and says we are going to have a m meeting tomorrow at 11:00 a.m. with steele ceos. he did not list them all and maybe some of these people have been there in the past. you mentioned it earlier. there was no process. the defense department did not know and the state department did not know. so just think about this. there is no prepared remarks from the president and no diplomatic plan to figure out how we are going to tell other country and there is no legislative plan to tell congress. the president wants to have a fight, he wants to change the narrative, well, he's got wilbur ross next to him saying let's do it. the market fes fell out of bed consequences. >> it is not the first time of the president playing on a controversy on another one.

stephanie's piece about including the fact that there are no background checks done of clear executives who came in, it should not be a surprise to anybody that the president has done this. he has talked about trade and protection and close borders for a long time and the only consistent piece of his world view and ideology cal philosophy before he became president and candidate. trade war, there is always a retailuatir retaliation. mitch mcconnell and the house minority leader, nancy pelosi. they know if anybody is going to talk them out of it, it is going to be members of congress. people who live and breathe these issues and knows the direct consequences and some negative consequences on the

consumers paying higher prices. there are still time talking him out of it or at leas least -- limiting the certain types of steel that applies to and accepting certain country and better allies and a lot of questions. >> remember his plan was to go after china. if you are going to go after china who you can make a good argument, they are launching an economic war against us but steel, this is a fight to have 25 or 30 years ago. gordon gecko calls and wants his artificial back. vladimir putin who says who never owns ai owns the future. when was the last time you heard president trump talked about artificial intelligence? >> great question. >> so you mentioned canada. we have managed to get sideways with some of our greatest friends on the planet, the britts and the metroplxicans, t would put us sideways with

canada. >> certainly, it would. we have all sorts of tensions with mexico over the issue of immigration and the wall. canada has been worried of the president's rhetoric on nafta and this portion fuels on the fire. if i may, i would like to feedbafactor one thing that the president tweeted, here are some countries that we don't have a trade of deficit, austria and u.k. and hong kong, there are many others on that. >> china has gone up since president trump has been in office. gotten bigger. >> stephanie ruhle, fantastic conversation tonight. thank you both. >> coming up for us, vladimir putin gets testy when nbc news asked about the indictments of 13 russians in this country, we'll show you the exchange when we continue.

we need to be ready for whatever weather may come our way. my name's scott strenfel and i'm a meteorologist at pg&e. we make sure that our crews as well as our customers are prepared to how weather may impact their energy. so every single day we're monitoring the weather, and when storm events arise our forecast get crews out ahead of the storm to minimize any outages. during storm season we want our customers to be ready and stay safe. learn how you can be prepared at pge.com/beprepared. together, we're building a better california.

let's recall that it was two weeks ago today a federal grand jury indicted 13 russians on a slew of charges related to interference of our 2016 elections. vladimir putin has denied any russian government involvement but what about russian citizens? who have been indicted and whose names we can read on our

document. our own megyn kelly asked him about it on "today." >> give us materials and information. >> hacking into the democratic committee and creating interference by creating false information on twitter and facebook. spreading missed information when it comes to black life matters and when it comes to our presidential election. >> with all due respect for you personally, you must have people with legal degrees. 100% you do. people who are well educated and understand that we russia cannot prosecute anyone if they have not violated russian laws. if you do not have a legal degree, i can explain to you. >> i do. >> then you have to understand what it takes is an official request to the general prosecutor of the russian

federation. give us a document. >> you said that last time and now i am back with an indictment. >> this has to go through an official channel and not through the press or yelling and hauling at the united states congress. >> we'll have much more on this. earlier on this network, director john brennen told nicole wallace he does not expect this russian attack to stop any time soon. >> i do think all americans should be concerned and worried and donald trump should be worried about what the russians are going to do in the 2018 and 2020 elections. our country needs to have confidence that we'll be able to deal with mr. vladimir putin who's flexing his muscles and that we can deal with these issues. >> this comes after a day where putin announced new class of weapons rendering defense system use less, it was an event squarely out of the soviet era. we'll show you the marketing campaign in a moment.

with us, our former battlefield of the commander gulf and our columnist for the boston gloep and chair for ethics at pointer institute. general, before we go doubling the pentagon budget to catch up of what putin unveiled, their computer graphics were incredible. some people pointed out they were borrowed with the deepest regions of youtube. they showed the incredible strengths of their missiles and they trolled the u.s. by using florida as one of their tarts. you have seen it all. before we double the pentagon's budget, what should we know about them? >> shocking kind of belly coast reactions by putin.

and great interview by megyn kelly. >> do not change the game. there is no rational first strike capability of nuclear weapons. when you look at russia in terms of national security, their population from the united states and their economy is smaller than california. their active ground combat forces are actually not all that much bigger than u.s. marine core and they have a very poor naval and air strategic capability they're trying to mode modernize. these guys are clever thugs. he's gotten russia into terrible trouble. the only thing he's got going for him is president trump

shocking in action and confronting him over our taxes over u.s. interests and over cryp crypto warfare. >> sure, there is no question about it. they're a hostile power to zus t us and the europeans. i think they are on the wrong side so now they are stuck with the iranians and the shea minority regime assad of syria, this is not good long-term strategy for the russian people. their health care system is in chaos and they're basically a developing country with limited freedoms surrounded by frightened neighbors who are applying economic sanctions to him. it is hard to imagine what is president trump doing not

recognizing this hostility. >> good question. >> and your friends up here could not help but notice about half of those war heads seem to be headed to your home in the tampa bay area of florida. serious question though, we heard putin talked about respect and talked about being listened to now which is as you know what the russians have craved. >> right, you are absolutely right, brian. this dates back to really the 1990s after the end of the cold war to nato's expansion and to the fact that russia at that point they're hoping of an outreach. i am simply saying nato's expansion under bill clinton than george w. bush's decision to lead the missile treaty. these are all decisions that shaped the decision that putin has taken sense. no sjustification for it but

that's givering ying you back s. that includes the invasion of crimea and ukraine, it muscle fg of having new weapons of icbm. you will notice his interview where she presses him on are these weapons for primetime and he did not answer the question. part of that was the annual state of the nation speech is a campaign speech for him, he's trying to stand up and say america took advantage of us when we were weak and we'll be weak no longer and i am going to stand up. that's apart of the message. >> i am going to predict that he does very well to election night. >> general to the last point you made, young people coming up and getting their first glimpse of russia would be for given of all

this powerful country because of the influence it had. it kind of gives their image of a boost and more of a grandiose image than the nation that you just talked about. >> it is true. these are world class people in physics and ballet and literature and their soldiers are legendary. and yet poverty is widespread. these people are surrounded by hostile neighbors who are fearful and particularly eastern europe. it does not make much sense from a political or economic viewpoint for vladimir putin to take on the world at large. but, again, i think the russian people honduras got it entirely correct. the humiliation of russia and

the soviet came apart and stumbling around disorganized and all of this was a huge problem to the self pride. you know keep your mouth shut and stand a political power and i will let you go on a vacation in france. you can keep your money if you share it with us on kgb. >> we are getting long in the general of mccafree. >> thank you very much. when we come back, we'll take on the question that's becoming immoraliz immoralize. how far is this is normal when t "the 11th hour" continues.

coming from a different

world and only been a politician for a short time, how am i doing? okay, i am president. can you believe it, right? >> if you think everyone when graded on the scale of chaos, this week seems wilder than normal. there is a writer at politico writes, something different about this week's spasm. it is the darkest example today of president trump's executive style looking untenable from the outside and inside, too. at times we become accustom, too, our friend at the washington post says this, none of what's happening is normal and none of it is normal. life is an imitating art.

what we have is a cheesy president and constant back stabbing and major characters periodically getting booed it out. we welcome our two perfectly normal guests, the host of the slate broadcast. he's a long suffering fan of the jets and white house's reporter for politco who coarthu coarthur -- coauthored the piece. mike, i got to begin with you of what the president said at 5:42 this morning. alec baldwin, this reminds me of the progressive education move 30 years ago, if our kids are trying to spell, however they spell it is just fine.

alex or alec, it was also agony for those who were forced to watch. you were terrible, bring back daryl hamlin is much funnier and a far greater talent. how far from this is normal. >> that's the thing that's not going to get us killed or plunge into economic chaos. really far from normal. can you -- i don't love playing can you imagine if another president did it? >> go ahead. >> i cannot remember when barack obama was complaining. i understand the extent of executive privilege but calling on the specific person to do your impersonation on "saturday night live." that should not rise at the level of the oval office. >> andrew, we did some checking, the tweet was at 5:42.

at 4:23 this morning for the few that are up to watch fox news did a segment that featured alec baldwin as the president. from 4:23 a.m. to 5:42. same question to you, how bad is it? >> it is getting bad. you see time and time again these sorts of mini scandals that happens in two weeks. things are getting crazy. the president is angry, he's stalking around and frustrated with his own staffs. and i spoke with a number of people in from previous white house both democratic and republican administrations and they just gasp of what they are seeing of what would happen if there is a huge crisis or market

downturn like president obama lived through, how will he react to that if he cannot handle parody on "saturday night live." >> people can see us. we have allies who are critical to us and that's why to some people this week did seem different. >> well, i would push back a little bit. to some extent, we become habit wait habit -- habituated to this. >> week 17 was the week right after he fired comey and did an interview with lester holt and admitting his motivation and got into a fight with hr mcmaster whose job was to go on tv covering up the facts that he leaked to the russians. that was not a good week and then there is the week that went to the core of the american character, the week of

charlott charlottesville. this is damaging to trump. that shook the country. so this week i think maybe is more indicative of the explanation that he thrives in chaos which i just think it is an excuse to make up for the fact that his incompetence often creates chaos. as you say internationally that's only a recipe for disaster. >> andrew, i need 30 seconds of briehl ye brie brilliance, we are mentioning his comfort people are leaving him >> exactly, they're all heading out the door. we had a lot of bad weeks but this one feels a little bit different because his staffs are done. they are frustrated and they had it with the president frankly. >> at the end of the long week. thank you gentlemen so much for coming on. coming up for us, while every week these days seem more like a year in terms o f time. we'll take you back to it all headline by headline, when we come back.

we need to be ready for whatever weather may come our way.

my name's scott strenfel and i'm a meteorologist at pg&e. we make sure that our crews as well as our customers are prepared to how weather may impact their energy. so every single day we're monitoring the weather, and when storm events arise our forecast get crews out ahead of the storm to minimize any outages. during storm season we want our customers to be ready and stay safe. learn how you can be prepared at pge.com/beprepared. together, we're building a better california.

from time to time and with the tempo we are living with and covering this administration, we like to reach way back weeks sometim some time to remember several story and looking back some of the headlines we have witnessed, just this week, on tuesday, we learned jared kushner lost his top secret security level clearance. white house communications director hope hicks tells that she tells lies and she resigns and paul manafort pleads not

guilty in washington, d.c. president trump calls his attorney general handling disgraceful and sessions pushed back in a rare statement. robert mueller was examining trump's efforts to outsed sessions in july. sessions having a public dinner among others with mueller's supervisor, department general rob rosenstein. mueller is asking witnesses if trump knew about the hack democratic e-mails before they were released. if wednesday was not busy enough, the new york times reported jared kushner's businesses got loans from companies after they met at the white house and then there is thursday, our own nicole wallace reported that the white house is planning to replace hr mcmaster as early as the end of this

month and mueller looking at charges of russians for the hacking and leaking of those democratic e-mails during the campai campaign. and the president abruptly announced steel and aluminum tariffs that could start a trade war. today we found out official that is trump was angry and unglued over some of the events we just detailed and nbc news reporting tonight that mueller's team is investigating in jared kushner's foreign business ties influenced any trump's administration policy. we did not get to the fact that the federal government was closed today due to high winds and manafort did not make his court appearance. that's our week in a flash. please note, we did not include the seizure of guns without due

process and ben carson's fabulous dining room adventure and the hiring of the president's campaign manager for the 2020 presidential election. everything in due time. another break and coming up like a lot of things in life, it sure looks different from the cheap sea cheap -- chief's seat. more on that when "the 11th hour" continues.

last thing before we leave you tonight is this. having started his day attacking a misspelled alex baldwin, tonight, surrounding by the trapping of the presidency and the mechanism to launch a nuclear attack that travels where ever he goes. donald trump will in at some point. while not given to bouts of self-reflection, it is possible that he'll pause to marvel of what a week it has been and his presidency is in. we are told that it was not going to be this way. this was supposed to be easy. it was donald trump who told us that and he did it more than once. >> i am not worried about this. i really believe that 60%

meaning should be so easy. that's easy to be presidential. >> so many of these things are so easy to fix. >> we'll get jobs back and we'll stop companies from leaving and it is so easy. >> a lot of politicians. it is going to be so easy. >> you will get great health care at a tiny fraction of the cost and it is going to be easy. >> i work with politicians all my life, they're easy. i am so good at this stuff. i am so good. it is so easy. >> our thanks to our friends at "hardball" for compiling that collection. this was day 407 of the trump's presidency. tomorrow will mark the president's 133rd day as president as a trump branded property. that's our broadcast on a friday night and for this week.

thank you so very much for being here with us, have a good weekend and good night from nbc news headquarters here in new york. >> plus, the story behind the quote,"

quote, "unglued president." and the massive popular uprising in deep red trump country. >> good evening from new york. i'm chris hayes. it would be one thing if jared kushner used his position of the white house to benefit his family real estate business. that would be bad. i mean, that's your standard run-of-the-mill style corruption. again, really bad. a big deal scandal if true, but also, the kind of thing you've heard about before. maybe in state or local government. okay, but it would be another thing entirely if jared kushner actually shaped american foreign policy to punish countries for turning down deals with his business at the expense of u.s. interest. and that is exactly what special counsel robert mueller is trying to figure out according to a new exclusive from nbc news. mueller's team asked about