that's all for tonight, chuck will be back tomorrow with more mtp daily. the beat with ari melber start this is second. >> we begin with breaking news, something you may not have expected to hear. stormy daniels is cooperating with federal agents investigating michael cohen. she's talking to the feds after something quite unusual, the fbi raid of the president's lawyer michael cohen hitting his office and hotel. seizing documents that we believe are related to at least $130,000 payment that cohen facilitated to daniels. donald trump famously said "ask michael." agents looking for potential documents on a separate arrange arrangement with karen mcdougal, she had an affair with donald trump in 2006 but that payment run by the "national enquirer"

which is run by a close confidante of donald trump as well. we're learning about documents related to a taxicab medallion company that cohen owns. trump calls this a "break in." in fact, it was planned by the fbi and it sparked with originally with something that was uncovered in bob mueller's special counsel probe. and we don't often read donald trump's tweets unless they have something important. here they are. "attorney/client privilege is dead." "total witch-hunt." that's a remarkable statement from a president whose own lawyer has just been basically surveilled and evidence gathered approved by his own deputy attorney general. the witch-hunt is coming from inside the house. meanwhile, donald trump seems to be trying to leave some door open to having bob mueller removed. here's the white house on that

today. >> reporter: you said the president has the power to fire robert mueller? >> i know a number of individuals in the legal community and the department of justice that he has the power to do so. we've been advised that the president has the power to make that decision. >> we've been advised the president has the power to make that decision. that is unlikely unless they are getting doj advice run that runs directly against the written rules of the doj. donald trump cannot personally fire bob mueller. he cannot unilaterally fire him. the law states through doj rules that mueller can only be removed by the acting attorney general, in this case rod rosenstein that has to be removed for cause, he has to be removed in writing. rosenstein, of course, has recently said there's no reason he's seen for removal. we're also told rosenstein green lit the raid on the president's lawyer's office. before we go to an excellent panel if i say so myself i want

to show you where we're at. trump's lawyer under investigation in manhattan. jared kushner still being scrutinized by prosecutors in brooklyn. donald trump's former campaign chairman, the only other person raided, he's under indictment. donald trump's former national security adviser already pleading guilty to false statements and then the two former aides we know about who are still cooperating with bob mueller. that's a lot. i'm joined by former watergate prosecutor nick ackerman, former white house counsel to president clinton jack quinn, neera tanden for the center for american progress and a lawyer with white house experience who is president of the american constitution society. dealers' choice, i could start anywhere. i'll go to jack as a white house lawy lawyer. did you ever see anything like this in your ten injury? what does it tell you? >> we didn't experience anything like this during my tenure. it tells me at a minimum that mr. cohen faces grave legal

jeopardy. precisely what crimes they're tracking down here is unclear but i think one can safely assume that these are not things that would have been directly within the mandate to bob mueller and in terms of either russian influence on the election or obstruction of justice related to that. >> neera, listen to chris christie, a former federal prosecutor in his own right, who is believed to still be close to the president and people who are really close to him speak to him as we all do, through the television. here's chris christie, what's on his mind. >> does he understand what firing robert mueller would mean? >> i think he does but i think what john said is right, i think the president is angry about this and expressed that yesterday. it's a big problem and i've told

him that. you can't fire the special counsel. you just can't. >> neera, why is he saying that now? >> i think obviously people are trying to talk the president out of firing the special counsel which is an extraordinary issue in and of itself but look at where we are we're having a reality question of whether he's going fire the special prosecutor or not. let's try to analogize this to a normal situation, which is hard, appreciate. but if a regular ordinary criminal basically had the power to fire the prosecutor or fire the police who were investigating them you would say that's kind of a piece of evidence that they're guilty. the fact that the president consistently talks about eliminating the threat of the special prosecutor who is investigating his crimes seems

to me an indication the president is not interested in expressing his innocence but is essentially confirming his guilt. >> caroline, into eck to that. you have also this white house legal experience and you're a constitutional expert in your own right and this goes to what we see when people deal with these situations. on one extreme is lawyers and clients who say i welcome a thorough review of the facts because even if some things look bad at first the process will clear me. the other is what neera is talking about, an el chapo-esque approach, saying let me get rid of the evidence and maybe i'll get through this thing. >> well, i understand score what near a said in that the firing of robert mueller would be another item under the obstruction of justice bill that

donald trump will have to pay. there may no longer be robert mueller but there will still be an investigation and trying to get rid of robert mueller in order to avoid being investigated because there's something to hide is the definition of obstruction of justice. the% can't bully his way out of this. we actually, thankfully, still have rule of law in this country which seems to be represented right now by robert mueller. it's quite an extraordinary circumstance to have the president in the public deriding the fbi, our law enforcement officials, our rule of law and all about that he or somebody made on his behalf to a porn star. >> you're speaking to the larger pattern of taking on the fbi at the top and also what he's done in new york. i have a special report on that process later tonight. i want to go to nick ackerman.

>> one theory is this is just about payment to a woman, maybe a second woman and that's all there is. then there's a wider theory that you've been exploring and i've reported on this show which is -- althoughnot say with certainty, we'll follow the ed -- what we would say about the law is that it's highly unlikely that you would take these meche yours to this high in the doj, to the president's attorney simply to devil into one discreet hush money payment. it stands to reason there's more. >> there's got to be much more. you have to have probable cause that a serious crime was committed. i say serious because doj is not going to approve a search warrant for the president's lawyer also you have strong probable cause of a serious

crime. on top of that, you have to have evidence of that that evidence of this crime exists in his office, his home and his temporary home. >> you're making a subtle point i want to underscore. you're saying that -- i hate to sound lawyerly, but the actual locus, the location for each search has to be independently approved? >> that's right. >> you can't say we think there's something in the house and we'll hit his hotel room as well. >> i think where the press has gotten this wrong is because the search warrant was obtained in the southern district in new york by the u.s. attorney's office in the southern district of new york that somehow robert mueller passed this matter off. >> which is a total referral which we don't know. >> it's unlikely and i'll tell you why. you have to have the southern district of new york as the locus to get the search warrant. that's what the statute says. secondly, i was in that office for over eight years. no one ever came in from the department of justice to get a

search warrant. it was always done by the assistants in the southern district of new york. that's why they call it the sovereign district. >> sovereign district of new york. nick ackerman going all the way in. neera, nick said the press has gotten some of this wrong. i would just add that's what we do. i don't know if you were around in 2016 but. >> i can spend a little time on what the press got wrong in 2016. >> i read your twitter, i know about it. >> as we're learning from mark zuckerberg's today and russian interference and a whole host of issues. but i think -- look, the central issue is we don't know what bob mueller knows. we know -- we can only see how trump behaves. we can only see how all the other actors behave. it's absolutely the case this is an extraordinary, extraordinary act to raid the offices of the

president's lawyer. obviously there's a lot here and we can see in the president's reactions the fact that this is a significant expansion. the fact that sarah sanders is talking openly about some flimflam justification for firing the special prosecutor when they have never gone that far tells you the president see this is as a real dangerous threat to him and he sees that likely because he knows of criminal acts himself. >> and jack that goes to what the president knows that michael cohen has in his office and up until yesterday nobody else knew. now the group of people expanded from michael and donald to the feds and that's quite a new group to know, including, according to the "new york times," attorney/client privilege communications. speak if you would, jack, how to you manage a client like the president. i'll read from the reporting

neera was citing. he spent much of monday afternoon glued to the tv watching cable news coverage of surprise raids, stewed all afternoon at times raising his voi voice. >> i don't know you can manage donald trump and that's part of the problem but, look the other part that apparently has him so ups upset, they're looking into cohen's office but remember, cohen is more than just his lawyer. a lot of the material that was swept up in this raid may be things that don't qualify as attorney/client privilege. my guess would be that a heck of a lot of it doesn't so who knows what boxes of pandora's have been opened up by the collection of all of this material. >> you're speaking to the centrality of the role of michael cohen in donald trump's

business life in his outreach to russia, his personal life. it reminds me of more than a lawyer. like the classic bee gees song "more than a lawyer to me." >> and the connection between donald trump and t he "enquirer and the lawyers for the women there it's interesting this has gotten the president more upset than anything about russia so far it's weird and it speaks to how close he and cohen are and how much cohennos. >> what else does he know and why is the president so exercised. thanks to each of you up ahead. breaking coverage on this unusual story. stormy daniels talking to the fed. also, later tonight i mention i have a report on how bob mueller is working this case and how it compares to other fbi

tough tactics. then a story we've been bringing you since the beginning. mark zuckerberg has his day in congress, facing a grilling over russia, facebook and privacy. >> if you messaged anybody this week, would you share with us the names of the people you've messaged. >> senator, no i would probably not choose to do that publicly here. >> i think that may be what this is about. >> and i'm joined by comedian billy eichner who is getting involved in the midterms. billy back on the beat tonight. i'm ari melber and you're watching msnbc. each day justin chooses to walk.

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stormy daniels is now cooperating with federal prosecutors. this comes on the heels of the raid of michael cohen's office and adds pressure on donald trump himself and the question of what both men know. cohen has been at trump's side as a fixer handling from the serious do the absurd. during the campaign he threatened a reporter over a story about messy details from trump's divorce. he shouted at a movie producer for not giving trump a cameo in "sharknado 3." classic lawyer stuff. he reportedly carried a gun in an ankle holster. help said he'd, quote, take a bullet for trump. he's known to be loyal which always made everyone wonder why such a loyal long time aide who currently certainly is paying for some of that loyalty was not

brought along to washington with trump. it's something he was asked about right before inauguration. >> michael, a lot of people have asked me because they know we've been friends a long time, why isn't michael going with the flex? >> i get that question a lot. i'm obviously very loyal and dedicated to mr. trump, i'm going to be the personal attorney to mr. trump. i'm not going to be in government but i'm going to remain technically in the same rule for mr. trump, for president trump. >> i'm joined by the "new york daily news" mike lupica. mr. lupica, i'll begin with you because you're from a less prestigious newspaper. >> i don't think that's a welcoming thought. >> i've always wanted to do that. what do you think other than the

rivalry i'm trying to stoke between you two distinguished friends of the beat. what do you think matters in the arc of michael cohen who was the guy then trump says ask michael cohen and now there's all this heat this week? >> ari, i was wondering if when michael cohen was in law school he wanted to grow up to be known as a fixer because this is kind of the one about a fixer being in the fix. when hal was running the "new york times" he talked about flooding the zone. and now it's not just trump that feels like his sewn is getting flooded, it's michael cohen as well. he's not a family member but he's been treated like one and you just spoke about his greatest quality in the eyes of this president which is being loyal. now we'll see how far this gets him. ari, you know as a lawyer, it's extremely unusual for a lawyer to be gone after the waco hen

was gone after yesterday. >> i guess we're doing our favorite hal raines quotes. you used to talk about raising the creative metabolism of an organization. is that correct, sir? >> that's correct. on that point, let me say having had the experience of being scooped by the "new york daily news" on more than one occasion, i have absolute respect for our sister publication. >> trying to stoke a rivalry and you end up in a mutual admiration -- we could use more of this in our lives. the creative metabolism of the trump organization, if you like it, if you believe in it and there were voters who thought it would be good for america, it's the creation of something out of nothing. if you don't like it, if you think it's a con like the students of trump university and others have alleged, what you think is people like michael cohen go running around making promises they can't keep. how do you analyze that in light of what we've learned this week? >> well, it's an interesting

contrast to think about the white house metabolism as it were, which is running amok and shapeless and today we heard from mr. zuckerberg who has a meticulously organized company and yet it was clear in his conversation with the senators that a lot of things fell through the cracks there as well so i think the thing i'd like that see the press, conditioning t congress and the government focus on is the fact you noted at the top, ari, this is a fraught moment in american history and it's important for us to address it seriously but try not to become apocalyptic in our language. here's where i think we are. mr. trump haas terribly entangled himself. he takes us each week into more

dangerous territory. there is a space between presidential eccentricity and irrational recklessness and it's the latter space that the constitution is not built to accommodate and today it got more bizarre when sarah sanders said something about the law that we know could not be happening, that there are lawyers in the washington legal community and in the justice department telling president trump he can fire robert mueller. even the watergate parallel can seem comforting here because president nixon was a beautifully educated lawyer and when the congressional leadership came to him and said you have to go, he understood the constitutional resonance of that moment. >> i want to give mike one more shot. as you put your finger on it, sarah sanders saying these lawyers said it, well, give us

their names, who are they? rosenstein might remove them if they're saying things that are contrary, mike lupica, howell referred toing a centricity and recklessness and i think the performance of eccentricity of donald trump can normalize recklessness that is far from a performance but an attack on our system of government itself. >> ari, look how you began the show tonight, by talking about how stormy daniels is cooperating with the feds. if you're in a story where the adult film star who allegedly had a relationship with you is cooperating with the feds, your life has taken a wrong turn i keep watching what's happening with this president and i keep thinking about arthur ashe's talking about john mcenroe's tennis game. he said "a nick here, a nick there and pretty soon you're bleeding to death." >> you know, this is one of those surreal segments where i'm glad that we covered everything.

mike lupica, howell raines, thank you. up next, we go inside the michael cohen raid, how it went down, why it's so unusual. that's my special report. then the story we were just discussing later this hour. if it's the beat you know we'll give you the key highlights from mark zuckerberg's testimony today. he says sorry but will that cut it? then later, a little political fun with the comedian billy eichner on his midterm secrets for the democrats. each year sarah climbs 58,007 steps. that's the height of mount everest. because each day she chooses to take the stairs. at work, at home... even on the escalator. that can be hard on her lower body, so now she does it with dr. scholl's orthotics. clinically proven to relieve and prevent foot, knee or lower back pain, by reducing the shock and stress that travel up her body with every step she takes. so keep on climbing, sarah. you're killing it. dr. scholl's. born to move. you wouldn't accept from any one else. why accept it from your allergy pills?

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the other top story tonight, our special report on the fbi striking farther inside donald trump's inner circle than it ever has before. raiding the office of trump's long-time personal lawyer michael cohen and setting the white house on edge with donald trump casting the lawful raid as some kind of break in. >> so i just heard that they broke into the office of one of my personal attorneys, a good

man. it's a disgraceful situation, it's a total witch-hunt. >> if there's a hunt here, we know who's leading it. under justice department rules searching a lawyer's office is such a big deal it has to be signed off at the highest levels and that's not all. in addition to that there are the special rules we talked about for robert mueller and they provide his boss, rod rosenstein, has to approve anything that goes beyond the original portfolio. after that, prosecutors have to, of course, convince a judge the whole thing is a reasonable search so each of those boxes were checked before anyone kicked in michael cohen's door. if there is a hunt, that means it's a hunt led by a republican trump appointee and approved by an independent judge now consider that in the entire mueller probe, you see there have been all these interviews and evidence cans or -- requests for dozens of people and

companies. then you look at the right and that is the only raids we've seen. the only two raids we know about are on michael cohen yesterday and paul manafort. and while cohen is, of course, presumed innocent, he hasn't been charged this kind of raid is both scary and typically a bad legal sign. >> it was a surprise pre-dawn raid on paul manafort. >> reportedly waking him up, knocking on his bedroom door. >> the first fbi raid we've learned up in the trump/russia investigation. >> a federal judge had to find cause there was evidence of a crime in manafort's hope. >> they didn't trust manafort not to destroy materials. >> trust then criminal evidence. those are the reasons the fbi resorts to this kind of raid so the news we're still processing, it's all about suspicions against cohen, not about whether the feds are being mean or unfair, though that is how trump has cast any raids on his aides.

>> i thought that was very -- pretty tough stuff. to wake him up, perhaps his family was there. i think that's pretty tough stuff. they do that very seldom so i was surprised to see it. i was very surprised. >> now, it's seldom done because the fbi has generally found that even companies or people who have some kind of criminal exposure, when they get caught up in a probe they tend to comply with evidence requests when the fbi has evidence of an ongoing conspiracy, say a corporation that runs on fraud or a politician abusing his office or mob boss on the run then and only then is when the tougher tactics come out. >> now to the enron collapse. the fbi is in the building tonight, the enron headquarters in houston. >> a former executive says she saw box after box of shredded evidence. >> at 6:00 this morning while

his children slept in their bedrooms, the governor of the state of illinois was arrested like a common criminal. >> according to the fbi, governor blah bgojevich expecte lot. >> john gotti was picked up by the fbi. this time the microphone had bug in a store front that was used by gotti in his headquarters. >> everything we just showed you is tough but lawful. you can't make those moves or searches without a warrant and you have to show the judge your target deseerves that treatment. that's the kind of heat on michael cohen tonight. the warrant executed by the office of the district attorney for the southern district of new york and there are signs this is exactly the kind of heat in new york that trump tried to avoid. the top doj prosecutor in new york is geoffrey berman. there are some reports he might not be involved in this probe.

that's the same post trump got personally involved in as a first order of business when he was still in the transition. he asked the prosecute or at the time, preet bharara, to stay on the job. >> the president-elect asked, presumably because he's a new yorker and is aware of the great work our office has done over the past seven years, asked to meet with me to discuss whether or not i'd be prepared to stay on as united states attorney. i agreed to stay on. >> presumably because he was a new yorker. that would be the innocuous reason donald trump wanted to have the new york prosecutor in to trump tower to talk about what he was going to do why would a president-elect want to keep a particular prosecutor on the job? well, what we now know makes it look worse. james comey testified that trump tried to keep him on the job in exchange for inappropriate loyalty and pressure to drop probes into trump aides who've

pled guilty and bharara, he'd soon find himself out of his prosecutor job, fired after, guess what? yes, after he refused to talk to donald trump in private phone calls that jeff sessions's own doj advised against. and bharara is now saying this week he's not convinced this is a full on referral to his old office. he writes, i could be completely wrong but such a referral seems precall war. the key question is whether this is aboutish that have nothing do with bob mueller or a way to gather evidence that could go back to mueller. we don't know yet. what we do know is that after trump got rid of bharara, the new york prosecutor, he returned to his odd interest in personally vetting prosecutors in just a couple places in the country. the places trump lives or headquarters his business. >> it's a weird thing for a president to meet with potential

nominees to be u.s. attorneys but when you look at the ones that president trump has met with, they'd be in charge of prosecuting crimes in washington, d.c. and in manhattan and brooklyn. very much the president's home turf both in politics and business. places where he might conceivably have skin in the game. >> skin in the game. well, the game changed last night. until last night, the only people in the world who knew what michael cohen's secret attorney trump files said were michael cohen and donald trump. tonight the feds are learning what's in them. i cannot underscore that enough. the feds are learning the things only michael cohen and donald trump know. is there something in there trump already knows about that drove himlengths to grab control of the doj at the top and its agent specifically in new york? would that explain donald trump's laser focus pressure on, again, not only the top of the doj and the fbi where he fired a

director and got a deputy director fired and blasted his own attorney general repeatedly but also this pressure that we may have forgotten about on the line prosecutors in new york and washington. people who would typically sign off on -- well, high level unusual moves like raiding the office of a lawyer to the president in new york. we've talked about this on the show before. the combination of power and cunning can be dangerous. take cunning and power and add a miss placed perception of ignorance and stupidity, which is what a lot of people assume about donald trump you may have a new level of stealth danger. these efforts might have worked if it wasn't for the prosecutor that at this hour donald trump can't seem to pressure or control, that's bob mueller. and he's already proven very willing to aggressively take on lawyers if he thinks they're

acting like criminals. >> mueller will go after lawyers and will go after them regardless of how small the violation may appear. >> mueller isn't afraid to get tough with lawyers. >> i think they have to be concerned. it's unclear what's going on. one possibility is now now dowd himself is part of the criminal investigation. >> bob mueller also got a judge to approve a very special request to force one of paul manafort's former lawyers to testify. so michael cohen clearly has a big problem tonight. is he all alone or this trump's problem, too? >> if you know anybody at the trump organization that spends any amount of time with him like i do, we all feel the same way about him. he's more to us than just a b s boss. he's a mentor, he's a sage, he's like family and when you have a

problem, mr. trump feels like he has a problem. >> when you have a problem, mr. trump feels like he has a problem. before we pre-judge every person in this entire play that we don't know how it ends, let's remember mr. cohen may have believed that when he said that. he may believe that tonight. when he has a problem, mr. trump has a problem. will he believe that when this is all over? we'll be right back. feel the clarity of non-drowsy claritin and relief from symptoms caused by over

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i'm joined now by democratic senator richard blumenthal. on a personal note, senator, i believe your day started as early as mine on noej as you prepped for what has been momentous. i want to get to facebook as promised but first, all of the news on michael cohen, including his statement in the last few hours that he said he'd be lying if he said he wasn't worried, he doesn't want to go through this, his lawyers maintain the raid was somehow inappropriate but it was approved by a judge. what does this raid mean to you in the wider probe? >> what it means -- and you have done great work in describing how extraordinary a raid on any lawyer's office, his home, his hotel room is in any criminal investigation, certainly it means that this investigation is circling and coming closer to

the oval office. in fact robert mueller is at the door of the oval office and knocking hard because his personal lawyer has all of the keys to that kingdom. it's the vault where all the secrets are and nothing is more abhorrent to a prosecutor than a corrupt lawyer. you have rightly said that robert mueller has the met totlo go after a corrupt lawyer. but well he should. something to more abominable in terms of criminal justice than a lawyer who has in effect gone over to the side of criminal activity and become an accomplice, an aider and abetter or otherwise involved in criminal activity. >> that would seem to be at a minimum the kind of evidence a judge would need to see to approval this. what i want to do is ask you one more question on this and then i'll add to my conversation one who just got off the phone with michael cohen. senator, let me flip it and say even if all of that is

problematic based on what we know, do you have any concern about the precedent of reaching this far into a sitting president's conversations with a lawyer with attorney/client privilege. if there were barack obama's lawyer, would you have the same view and vigor? is there any constitution al protection that concerns you? there is a constitutional protecti protection for certain rights, the right against self-incrimination, obviously and the lawyer/client privilege is enshrined in our law so the department of justice will take precaution through a walled off procedure to review the documents and other evidence seized to avoid any infringe ment on the attorney/client privilege but let's reflect on where we are here. the president is talking about

firing the spourl. his spokesperson said he has the fire to fire the special counsel because he believes a statute is unconstitutional on his own, he's going to declare it unconstituti unconstitutional under article 2, 28, usc 509 says he lacks that power so i have no reservation in saying the special counsel has to adopt all of the aggressive means that are necessary to uncover the truth and take this investigation where it goes based on facts and law. >> senator richard blumenthal, thank you for joining me. i turn to "vanity fair's" emily jane fox, an analyst. she just got off the phone with michael cohen. what can you tell us? >> i got off the phone with michael cohen and he was just describing a little bit more about the raid yesterday at his hotel. he said there was no knocking down of the doors, that about 12 agents did come to the door to

his hotel at about 7:30 in the morning so he wasn't woken up very early in the morning, he said the agents were incredibly respectful of his property and his family that they were polite and courteous and respect. did he say anything about russia or stormy daniels? . he did not comment. i asked him if he had spoken to the president since yesterday and he said he did not speak to him but he was not expecting to hear from him since yesterday he did however watch the president's comments and he thought that he was ashamed that the first question the media asked was about michael cohen. >> it's interesting to get his perspective. we wanted to get that on air. emily jane fox, thank you for calling in. i'll fit in a break then something very special. comedian billy eichner joins us to talk about why he's taking on trump in the midterms. patrick woke up with back pain.

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donald trump has long been obsessed with celebrities but many celebrities not feeling trump and they're boosting the resistance, joining students at the march for our lives where you could find a friend of "the beat" and star of billy on the street, billy eichner out marching. he stars in the new "american horror story" season with a trump themed plot and he's been exposing the growing rot at the center of the american experiment we call democracy. >> would you sign this? >> i would love to. >> here's a pen, we're saying good-bye to the freedom of the press. >> we are going to run through an obstacle course that takes us on a tour through the united states of america. the more guns along the way the safer and more american you become. >> eichner joins me to talk about politics, comedy and the glam midterms, a new push he has to encourage voter turnout and fight republicans and change who turns out. that was a key part of dems winning alabama and dems elected conor lamb in pennsylvania, a

state trump narrowly won. forecasts have democrats winning back the house and we turn to billy eichner and begin with the big question. are the democrats surging because of your work? >> absolutely. i was watching that and thinking about what a hero hero i am. sometimes i'm so busy doing the work that i forget. >> you forget to reflect. >> how much i have meant to american democracy. and you know, the republic in general. i've gone to a few makeups lately, history museums. i just walked around thinking god, i'm a great person. i don't have to be here. >> you're very funny. you're known to be funny. >> thank you. we did show some of your punch lines go to the dark place. ha-ha, freedom of the press is in danger. >> we're sat rising a dark moment in our history the way that many people are. with billy on the street for many seasons it had been a silly absurdist riff on pop culture, but now culture and politics are

fully merged. i believe and so to not talk about that would make the show feel completely irrelevant. ryan murphy felt that way with the prior season of americ"amer horror story". a lot of artists are feeling that way. i wanted to do the glam up the midterms campaign because it's an optimistic approach to what's happening as opposed to just complaining and angry and snarky. >> you talk about that difference because the cliche about any artist or celebrity getting involved, right, is maybe you don't know what you're talking about. you seem to be channeling feelings that a lot of people have. you're a comood communicator. you tweeted as here ren dus as i knew trump would be, what's remarkable is he's somehow worse than i thought. >> yes. >> a lot of people in washington say that. >> yeah. well, you know, i guess like i say in the tweet, as all of as i knew he would be, there was a more hopeful part of me when he

first got elected thinking he's from queens, i grew up in queens. i'm a new yorker, i've been aware of trump all my life. >> queens is the first thing i think when i see you. >> you just lost your glaad award if that's what you were going for. >> i don't know what that means. >> but you know, queens seriously, is the most diverse borough in the most diverse city in the world. and i grew up in forest hills, queens. trump grew up in queens, as well. there was a part of me that thought maybe now that he has the job and getting all the press and all the attention, he'll somehow step up to the plate and be a slightly more normal. and not as disturbing and not as you know, anti-american as i feel that he is in terms of his values and his choices. but he went extreme in the opposite direction. and that, i don't know, i guess i was ignorant or naive and i was no supporter of his but i

guess i hoped for something that i was wrong to hope for. >> one of the funny things you do on your show is for a dollar, and we'd like to play again with you. >> okay. >> for a dollar, billy, name someone on trump's cabinet who has lasted over a year. >> scott pruitt. >> good. >> for a dollar. >> you think i'm some idiot, ari, because i'm on a couple of tv shows i don't know who ises in trump's cabinet? >> let me ask you a question, who was on "designing women"? >> exactly. >> "designing women"" was very smart sophisticated women in a group setting. >> if i can name someone in trump's cabinets, i need to you name someone. >> san dran bernhardt. >> no, she wasn't. >> i took a risk. for $1, who is going to pay for the border wall? >> not me. >> for a dollar, what is easier to buy in america, an iphone or a gun? >> i would imagine they're equally easy to purchase actually. >> and you find that problematic. >> i'm no millennial because i'm

old but i think that's very problematic. we did an obstacle course on billy on the street long before what happened in parkland, and we just went through all the lack of gun safety laws in almost every state in the union. and it's shocking. > you are getting your first netflix special into i'm doing a netflix special. >> which is huge. i love aching on netflix. it's come much later in your career than other comics. >> i was busy. >> they asked earlier? >> yeah, they were interested. they came to me. when was the first time they asked? >> i don't remember. what is this will, fricking mccarthy hearings? talk about my glam up the midterms event. ron burgundy live in san diego, you can sign up. headcount.org/glam up 25018. the ticks are free. but in order to attend, you have to either register to vote or if you're already registered sign up for election alerts by going

to that website. headcount.org/glam up 2018. >> full disclosure, i've always been a fan of your comedy. it is very interesting to see you using your platform to engage young people and get all these people involved. it's awesome and billy on the street, we appreciate you doing a little billy on the beat. >> you need some designing women in your life. >> do you want to -- this is the thing we do. >> i held your hand last time. ex-yushating amount of time. when can i meet rachel maddow. >> >> i promise if you do five to seven more appearances on "the beat," we'll work on it. >> it's not worth it. >> billy eichner, thank you for being here. >> thank you. no, he's trying to tell us something. let's see what forensics thinks. sorry i'm late. what did i miss?

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with these federal agents working on the cohen case and her lawyer michael avenatti will be "the 11th hour"" tonight. i'll be back here at 6:00 p.m. eastern. "hardball" with chris matthews starts right now. >> will he fire mueller? let's play "hardball." >> good evening. i'm chris matthews in washington. tonight with his personal attorney firmly in the sights of federal prosecutors, president trump appears to be readying himself for a dramatic confrontation with special counsel robert mueller. as multiple news organizations have now reported the fbi yesterday conducted raids of michael cohen's office, his home and his hotel room and seized his computer, his phone and financial records as well as his correspondence with donald trump. the move h