well, we had a packed show for you. that's all we have tonight and we'll be back monday. more "mtp daily." but if it's sunday it's meet meet -- "meet the press." good evening, ari. >> good evening, chuck. we begin with breaking news. bob mueller indicting russians for hack iing. the biggest developments in this probe since paul manafort's indictment. this is friday, july 13, and the special counsel probe that donald trump has spent his presidency degrading in which house republicans furiously blasted in that nearly ten-hour hearing yesterday in which currently hangs over trump's foreign tour and putin summit, well, tonight there has been the most detailed indictment of russian election meddling in american history. there are implications here for the u.s. relationship with russia, the security of the

upcoming midterms and most importantly implications for potential further charges here in the united states. tonight on the beat we have special coverage of all of this including reaction from a top aide to hillary clinton and a former roger stone associate sam nunberg. but i bring you the facts tonight. tonight's indictment not aimed at a lawyer who did work for trump associates like some past indictments, not aimed at unknown political operatives like george papadopoulos and not at any one individual's allegedly non-political crimes which is how trump's defenders try to distance themselves from paul manafort. tonight the who is disturbing, mueller aiming at top russian military intelligence officers the what is conspiracy to interfere in the 2016 elections. the charges are conspiracy to commit offense against the u.s., identity theft and money laundering among others. that means right now we are know more about bob mueller's

strategy for pressing this case going forward than ever before. the political world talks about collusion but the key word is conspiracy. mueller stating the object was to hack u.s. campaign officials, steal documents and stage releases of the stolen documents to interfere with the 2016 election. how did they do it? i'll read key allegations. russian agents hacking over 300 e-mail accounts, stealing e-mails and other documents and that includes 2.5 gigabytes after data. it doesn't say they stole and released the material but instead they released it in stages with specific strategies to impact the election. that's how this information was stolen and weapon sized we have to also consider how everyone is looking at whether this would happen again. >> we need to work together to hold the perpetrators

accountable and moving forward to preserve our values, pro against future interference and defend america. >> that means defending america in the midterms. if watergate was a domestic burglary to win an election that brought down a presidency, today mueller is alleging a domestic burglary in cyberspace launched by a nuclear-powered adversary in this international conspirac conspiracy. is this worse than watergate? it's a question you've heard before. bob mueller is answering that tonight and he's pointing out this operation was certainly bigger than watergate, certainly lasted longer than the watergate break in. whether it involves top american political officials remains an open question. so consider all that and add this -- tonight is the first time the united states has charged russians for stealing information on american voters. that's a whole other piece of this indictment alleging that they, the russians were hacking a web site of a state board of

elections. names, addresses, parts of their social security numbers, dates of birth, i.d. numbers. what states did that happen in? this indictment doesn't tell us that tonight but half a million voters a lot. it could have an impact on a state like michigan that was decided by 10,704 votes. the indictment raises new questions about this moment in the 2016 campaign. >> russia, if you're listening, i hope you're able to find the 30,000 e-mails that are missing. >> well, bob mueller puts that in this indictment and this may be one of the most disturbing things because i can report to you for the first time tonight that it was the same day, july 27, 2016, that trump said that and the russians began, quote, for the first time harking

e-mails affiliated with the clinton campaign. we have a range of guests so we begin with bill kristol, editor at large of the "weekley standard." new york's evelyn farkas, a russian expert and diplomat. john, what speaks to you in this indictment? >> the thing that speaks to me is what i expect we'll see in the next indictment, the kind of one-two-three of the mueller investigation, which is pinning the tail on the donkey being the orange unanimous the west wing. we have two critical dates, there are others here but you may notice that on june 8, these russians set up a special web site, a facebook page, and a twitter account, all of which was to disperse all the e-mails they'd stolen from the dnc and the dccc as of that date. the next day they have a meeting in trump tower and it was published as a meeting that was

going give information to the trump campaign to go forward against hillary clinton. then we have later in june another request for information because they were afraid that the bernie sanders people would go with hillary after the nomination battle in july and so about a month later they had collected information and they did exactly that, they released it and days after they released that information the quote you put on the screen is the one that trump stated which is more, give us more and they did that evening according to this indictment. >> you're suggesting this indictment tonight adds detail to the theory of the case that donald trump was not joking, was not being reckless, was not making a rhetorical point but was publicly actively trying to conspire with a foreign power in those remarks? is that what you're saying? >> absolutely. he was arrogantly and transparently taking an overt act in this conspiracy to get

elected with russia and in two days they'll ask each other what to do. this explains why trump gave the statement about june the 9. >> you're bearing something that bill kristol and i have discussed before which is that donald trump is sophisticated about his defense here and bill john is quoting from page 13 of this indictment which says on june 8 these russians launched d.c. leaks and used it to release stolen e-mails and he pointed to the fact it was the next day you had this trump tower meeting and that donald trump has been exposed for interfering in defense of a trump tower meeting which he did not attend and there's never been a benign explanation for why the president personally involved himself to explain something that he would have second hand information about if

he is innocent, bill. >> that could be right. that's the more modest version of at least is that mueller goes out of his way to put a couple dates in this indictment that he doesn't need. the july 27 date is put in, that doesn't add anything, it's not required he knows that but maybe he wants us to do do research and say trump said what he said on july 27 which you played but what is striking about that, you guys are prosecutors, i'm not lawyers. why does he do that? i think he's signaling a lot of people out there we know everything. think of what he has to know. he has to have access to communications presumably among these russians and between these russians and people elsewhere, people running wikileaks and so forth and also presumably communication communicatio communications between russians and the united states. if you're on the fence about whether to flip and think gee, maybe i can get away with this. you look at this indictment and

think maybe i better place a call to the special prosecutor's office or the southern district in new york or someone in the justice department and say maybe i will complete so i think for michael cohen, for paul manafort even though he's already indicted but he's in play in terms of someone who can flip, if more others we don't know much about at this point, this is a signal that mueller knows an awful lot and assuming there is some collusion with american which is i think is hard to doubt, i think this is his way of signaling those americans let's play ball here. >> let me go to evelyn and back to you, john. >> what strikes me, ari, is that there's no 400 pound guy in new jers jersey, there are 12 faces with names and mueller lays out the organization, he says these are the two guys in charge here are the people who did x, y, and z. a couple people were sending information into the twitter

sphere and the other part of it and the other indictments, those are the social media folks, the iri, the international research agency in st. petersburg so they took that data that was stolen so the picture is coming together accurately and it's demonstrating how good our intelligence is. i've gotten in trouble coming on tv saying i know, i know. what i meant was in my gut, in my gut because i know we have good intelligence on russia that what administration officials were saying was well informed and this is truth. >> i want to put up more important pieces on this. he says there was a person in regular contact with senior members of the campaign of donald trump. he shows the russians had a request for stolen documents for a candidate for the u.s. congress, wow, and that russians were contacting u.s. reporters with an offer to provide stolen e-mails. to bill's point as a logical

journalistic analyst who worked in a white house, bill kristol, and your view as a prosecutor, both of you know and evelyn knows he doesn't need to mention those things for these charges. what is he doing with the american references? >> i think what he's been doing is doing what the irish like to do, a one-two-three, a three act play. the first act was how the machinery was set up in the first place with these bogus ways to contact people and spew information out and that was an indictment to shake the tree that would help identify people in the second face. the second face is the precursor to the final act in this play and it's going to be to identify the people in the campaign right up to the obstruction activities of mr. trump, i think, and that

will be when the curtain falls down and i think there's enough notice give on the the target of the investigation, mr. trump and his associates, that that's why we're getting such a persistent strong pushback. so the congressman is important. we have another country -- candidate. i'm just saying congressional candidate? >> candidate, yes. and the way it's described in the indictment, he knows that these documents are stolen. this person knows documents were intercepted in violation of american law, federal law. >> and it seems to show, john that bob mueller is implying he's willing to pursue that, aka, indict candidate who traffic in stolen material. john and evelyn are staying with me. bill i want to get your view on one more thing before i let you go. listen to how this statement

from donald trump days ago sounds give than the doj confirmed today at the time he was making the statement he already knew these russian agents were going to be charged for this serious crime. take a look. >> we will, of course, ask your favorite question about meddling, i will be asking that question again. >> reporter: will he deny it? >> he may. what am i going to do? he may deny it all i can say is did you and don't do it again. he may deny, you'll be the first to know. >> how does that look now? >> well, this morning he said it was a rigged witch-hunt so he's briefed, 12 russian senior officials and their intelligence service are going to be indicted with this evidence behind him and he calls it a witch-hunt. he's doubling down, he won't go gently into the good night and he'll look at pardons and doing things at the justice department to derail this investigation if he feels under threat. >> bill kristol, we've been

following this. i'm going to return to the other panelists, i want to bring in another voice. mueller's charges come a day after house republicans were hammering a former investigator on this probe. my next guest, florida congresswoman val demmings questioned the entire motivation yesterday. >> i never thought as a law enforcement officer i'd ever have to defend the department of justice from my republican colleagues on the other side of the aisle. >> florida congresswoman val demmings is here along with a former congress person from the other side, missouri republican tom coleman. he wrote earlier this year that it's no longer a "fantasy" to raise the question of whether donald trump committed "treason." congresswoman demmings, put today's indictment in the context of what house republicans were doing yester y yesterday. >> well, first of all, ari, thank you for having me on your show. look, yesterday was painful. it shows me the extent that my

colleagues on the other side of the isle would go to to protect the president as opposed to pursuing the truth. that's what we all want but today was i think a sad day in american history. 12 military operatives from russia acting in their official capacity charged. and i think it sends a clear message that vladimir putin is very much aware of what was going on, the interference in our election, the effort to undermine our democracy, to sow discord and we also know that the president ever time he speaks of putin it's almost from a position of weakness and not strength. i want to see the end of this case and see where it takes us. >> do you think yesterday's attacks on a former member of this team in light of today's charges and that donald trump was warned about them earlier

smack of something inappropriate or a potential style of mc mccarthyism against a legitimate investigation? >> i can tell you as a former law enforcement officer i used to say where mr.there's smoke, there's fire. but i believe looking at the anger yesterday, the desperation yesterday to basically undermine agent strzok, even though his texts were inappropriate he admitted that from the beginning but the efforts to totally undermine and discredit him, but i think it was to undermine the long standing good reputation of the entire federal bureau of investigati investigation. i believe it shows the desperation of the white house and of my republican colleagues at least on the judiciary and oversight committee to cover for him. >> a former republican colleague

from the house, congressman coleman, spoke out earlier, i want to read for you congressman what the president's lawyer rudy giuliani is saying about this, the other side of the table, the indictments are good news, the russians are nailed, no americans involved, time for mueller to end the pursuit of the president and say president trump completely innocent number one your response and number two how does your past decision lean in light of today's indictment? >> thank you for having me on the show, ari. rudy giuliani is -- i don't know if he's a performance artist or a lawyer or friend of the president but he doesn't make sense. i would not go out if i were he and declare my innocence because i wasn't charged in this indictment. there are going to be more indictments. he is setting the table for the next shoe to drop, two analogies

put together. but the point is we have for the first time confirmation that what happened after this was state-sponsored cyber attacks and this is different there what we heard before with the other 13 people that have been indicted. these people who are officials of the government, we used to call them kgb agents. >> and that government is led by vladimir putin who the president is about to meet with. is the president's preparations and public comments for that meeting make him look more or less guilty? >> i don't think he's prepared. i have dealt with the former communist party in the kgb when i was a member of congress and they're tough, they're in your face, he'll fold like an accordion if they do that with him. the problem is are donald trump hasn't condemned these hackings and cyber attacks on our democracy. it's always about him, how does

it affect the image of him, his victory, the size of his victory. it's never about our country. he needs to condemn what wented on cancel the meeting and if he doesn't can tell meeting he's giving us reason to believe he's not just falling into the hands of putin, he may already be. >> i'm running late on time although i'm fascinated to hear this especially from a former republican congress person like yourself. congresswoman demmings, do you agree trump should leave this meeting? >> i was totally shocked that the president's press secretary said he had no intentions to cancel. he should cancel the meeting. not prepared before today's announcement and certainly not prepared after. >> >> our special coverage continues live right now as promised, a former roger stone aide sam nunberg and back with me for context evelyn farkas.

people in politics say we knew there was hacking but the man you used to work for, donald trump, and many people around him doubt about how it happened, whether it mattered. do you think today's indictment which donald trump was briefed on, should change his mind about undermining both the fact that the russians did this and attacking the probe? >> first of all i think this should change the mind of any republican voter that doesn't want to donald trump to be impeached. the fact that they would release this indictment before his meeting with putin. >> you think this is a predicate for impeachment why? >> well mueller is setting up the narrative. the next indictments coming will be i assume roger and maybe others. it's been reported by cnbc, i was never asked about this that somebody was asked about a meeting roger had with -- his name escapes me on live tv

while, rick gates. >> and rick gates has pled guilty. >> and he's cooperating. >> you say today you think it's more likely roger stone would be indicted? >> i think roger from the very beginning after i left the grand jury wish to nice to say roger was the subject, he was clearly a target. my question -- >> that was clear to you in the way you were being questioned? >> i said that to you before. >> but you said before you felt they were trying to set up a "perjury trap which has to do with statements roger would make. this doesn't look like perjury, this looks like laying out the predicate for the fact that roger stone was talking to military agents that said they were guccifer, they pretended they were not russian, they had a romanian cover story. do you think roger may have knowingly committed a crime as he went down that road? >> no.

in terms of cooperating with the russians, i've talked about this publicly, i said i don't know why you're associating yourself with these people. our intelligence community says the russians did it and he said he didn't believe the russians hacked. >> do you think roger is that stupid? >> i think roger is conspiratorial. i think roger, alex jones and that whole -- >> but that defense you're sharing -- >> this is all i know. >> this makes you -- let me finish. you're explaining your understanding of the situation. that theory suggests roger stone is stupid or a novice. >> roger does not trust the government. i disagree with him. putin is not my friend. by the way, the president should confront putin about this publicly in his press

conference. >> do you think he will? >> i don't know. >> if the president meets with putin which i think it was a horrible idea, i thought it was a horrible idea before this but it's still a horrible idea, even worse now unless he comes back with 26 russians in handcuffs because we need them extradited. we have 26 russians if my math is right. >> as a matter of diplomacy does it look weak and soft to give putin this meeting? >> you are leading the witness. yes. with. >> would -- sam would i lead a witness? right now this kremlin, this russian government only understands firmness. if the president goes and meets with putin unless he takes his shoe off like nikita kruschev, the former head of the soviet government and pounds it on the table he won't appear firm to putin privately nor to the russian people or the russian

government and the russians will only stop their meddling, remember, they're still meddling, they'll only stop it if our president is a firm. >> i want to say very quickly this shows why the special counsel does affect in jeb and specifically as president conducting foreign policy. releasing this indictment was selective. i don't know why they had to do it. i love this indictment from the point of view of we're holding the russians accountable, i hope these people never enter the yielgts -- united states. >> let me push you on that. there's nothing new about the doj going after spies when they operate here, preet bharara who many of our viewers know under obama indicted russians and other people. you're not alleging anything wrong with the process. >> i don't think the president could have delayed this? what would have happened if the president -- >> why would you want to delay

it? why wouldn't you want to be tough when the facts show interference? >> i think if he would say i have to meet with this guy, let's do it next friday. >> let's play the other part. organization one is named in this indictment and it appears to be wikileaks and it appears to allege wikileaks did more than release information which is old school wikileaks transparency, that they seem to be actively involved in trying to help your former candidate with the timing and then you have the fact that donald trump was very publicly boisterous about wikileaks during the campaign. take a look. >> this just came out, this just came out. wikileaks, i love wikileaks. you see so much from these wikileaks. wikileaks. unveils horrible horrible things about hillary clinton. boy that wikileaks has done a job on her hasn't it? >> do you think durl the campaign donald trump or his top leadership team had an

understanding what's alleged in here today regarding wikileaks and the russians? >> i cannot answer that because i do not communicate with them. i would say everybody on the conservative and media side this wanting believe assange when he said it wasn't the russians. >> and the benign interpretation is a lot of people shade a lot of things for their team. the question, though, given what we keep learning with the coordination is whether donald trump sounded so loving about wikilea wikileaks. now i want to turn to national security implications. mueller indicted the veracity of putin's famous denials. >> you and the russian government did -- never tried to influence the outcome of the u.s. presidential election and there will be no evidence found?

>> translator: watch my lips. no. >> no. well, today mueller says yes tracing this hacking back to two buildings in moscow housing putin's own intelligence officers mueller alleging the russians did all sorts of things to hurt the clinton campaign including installing malicious computer suppose, spherephishing, spoofing social security numbers in america. the intelligence officers cast a wide net. they went after many others in the democratic party i do not clinton and mueller alleging these officers recruited and deployed intermediaries to hide putins footprints. the idea was to trick you if you're watching as an american voter to thinking that damaging information coming out about clinton came from more neutral sources and getting a leg up during the campaign as candidate trump embraced these leaks. russia went another step further. i was discussing this with sam nunberg.

strategizing with americans, timing the leaks of stolen material to maximize the damage. john flannery is back with me as part of our special coverage and sam nunberg riding along for any thoughts you have. walk us through what this means when you see the nature of the russian operation and the idea that there was american expertise along for the ride. >> i'm fascinated by the continui continuing lie by putin that we ask trump to ask him do you really believe what you're say i ing. if they're both in the same conspiracy as i suspect and believe, and many do, they're both part of a public lie both

will say i didn't do anything says putin and trump will say that's what he says so that's how it must be. that becomes impossible in this environment and i think the law and truth will ultimately bring down at least this fellow we have in the white house present ly and the question is when you think about it, you talk about the russians, putin and being compared to kruschev, we will bury you, if we don't do something trump will berry er b. he's taken our allies and dissed them because they cooperated in the intelligence that made it possible. we're withdrawing from economic alliances that made our life-style what it is. is he doing this for putin or is this just bad and evil judgment for what's best for americans? the implications of this conspiracy are enormous and dangerous and roger stone is

obviously not the only one involved in this, we had no contacts with russians and now we know there are 11 or 13 or however many specifically documented so i think we're in a place where we're fighting to keep the republic. you have a republic if you can keep it. this man is endangering it. this man isn't a republican, he's un-american and a criminal and until we do something about it this nation will be at risk. >> sam? >> well, i have a lot of criticisms of him personally but to say he's a criminal and not an american i think he cares about this country. and to talk about the economy is doing -- well, i won't get into his accomplishments but that's one perspective which once again shows that donald trump's presidency is on the line in the midterms and we have to find out with mueller who has played a very good game here. the prosecutors -- and this

gentleman said it -- they set up narratives. he has a narrative to impeach the president which the democrats will impeach him on. if the republicans control the house we have to get into whether or not this is a too circle as a conspiracy. i have no doubt the russians hacked. i think the president once again will be well served if he confronts putin the same way macron did and just says -- looks him on live and put it to rest. >> well the midterms aren't that far away. you seem to think this new indictment goes further in the case that democrats and some republicans, depending on who, would use this to say if this goes to the top something has to be done to hold someone accountable otherwise you have an election conspiracy potentially that changes the outcome of who is in control of the country. how could you not deal with that? >> well, rod rosenstein said this didn't affect the election

outcome. >> he did say that. >> number two i can make the case that trump has been very hard on putin, not publicly but look at what putin has got. >> secretly? >> secretly which is a mistake by him politically. look at the sanctions. he inherited very tough sanctions during his transitions and put more on putin. >> i hear john flannery grumbling. i am so over on time you have to go quickly. >> well, i think we're so far past it with this president, he makes errors in every direction and when has a president ever been treated like a baby floating overned a nation that's our ally? >> john, i would not call him a baby. i think it's well documented he doesn't appreciate that but i'm going to go on to my next guest who i specially booked for a different perspective and i'm very grateful to john flannery and sam nunn. bob mueller's new indictment

marched into the center of our polarized politics. these questions raise suspicions about how much the operation shaped the race then you have what if questions. aggrieved clinton fans losing by the narrowest margins and the questions rankle trump fans who feel they were underestimated and find their victory greeted by a delegitimizing story. today mueller's boss showed his awareness of that divide. he's urging non-partisanship which could be a warning to trump allies who benefited from russia's crimes potentially. >> we confront foreign appearance in american elections. it's important to avoid thinking politically as republicans or democrats and instead to think patriotically as americans. the blame for election interference belongs to the criminals who committed election

interference. >> but one side was victimized and i'm now joined by a top clinton official who chaired the party that was hacked. today's indictment show a that what misneera tanden was fighting trump, there were also a request to find anything that could overshadow hillary clinton's nominating convention and look, it sort of worked. >> started and we already have our first major controversy. >> the e-mails which reopened a rift in the democratic party as it tries to present a united front in philadelphia. >> even with wasserman schultz no longer taking the convention stage, we see disunity here in the arena. >> disunity that everyone agrees was caused by the time e-mail leaks and within days trump said th this. >> russia, if you're listening, i hope you're able to find 30,000 e-mails that are missing.

i think you will probably be rewarded mightily be our press. >> and look at the other side of your screen. the political world processing this charge in the mueller indictment that trump said that and russia began hacking clinton staff e-mails for the first time the same day he made that request. i'm joined by neera tanden, a top aide to hillary clinton who was hacked. she's the president of center for american progress and former dnc chair and presidential candidate howard dean. neera, your response? >> i think i'm gratified the department of justice investigated and found the specific russians who targeted americans who stole from american americans in order to influence the election, the fact that we have an impartial enough department of justice and mueller investigation to find the truth is vital for our

democra democracy. i think it's frankly insane that the president of the united states is going to have a summit with putin and after we have these facts in front of us i would call on the president to not have a summit, to actually be a president for all of americans and act in the defgs of our country and say to putin that your acts against america are intolerable because i don't trust that's possible from a president aid ed and we may hav evidence he colluded directly for these results. i think the president needs to cancel the summit. >> neera raises the foreign policy implications. it's so remarkable to learn today that donald trump was

beefed and knew we were moving as a country further at indicting these military agents for what is called in the law a conspiracy against the united states farther than we've ever gone and with that knowledge he praised putin and said that would be his easiest meeting on this trip. your person who didn't replace you immediately but someone who came after you to chair the dnc said this about it today. >> what he ought to do is hand him over these indictments, demand the immediate prompt extradition of all the defendants involved. he is playing into the hands of putin right now. >> your view, governor? >> i think that's true. trump -- i have long said i think he's crazy and i think he is. this has been a disastrous foreign trip and it won't get better when he meets with vladimir putin who just had 12 of his people indicted this

nonsense about this is some plot or fake news or whatever trump calls it, 33 indictments including guilty pleas from an impartial grand jury. the american people who were presumably populating this grand jury think there's something to this and we have established that it's incredibly likely the russians did hack. now we have to find out if they did it in collusion with the trump campaign and it looks like they may well. >> neera, this is something your candidate mentioned at debates and you try to get traction for. how much stronger is the case and do you think this is why you lost the election? >> hillary clinton lost the election by 70,000 votes across three states. the idea that wall-to-wall wikileaks coverage driven by donald trump and his 164

mentions of wikileaks in the last month of the campaign did not create 70,000 votes across those three states, none of us will know. anyone can say it did not actually create the loss, we can't say that and i think that is what we have to rise which is the russians did this for a purpose, it was to help elect donald trump and he was elected at -- in a very close, competitive election in which their work work was used in the national media daily with a constant drip-drip-drip. and that's why i think this information is vital that we get to the bottom of whether there was direct engagement by donald trump himself. i will remind all our viewers of one simple fact, which is the wikileaks dumps started within minutes of the "access hollywood" going live. the idea that there is no

connection seems we have to get to the bottom of that because at the end of the day whether donald trump knew about this before the election is the central question in front of us and over the last year we have learned strong er and stronger connections. >> it's a central and legal democratic question in america and bob mueller has moved forward on it tonight. we're fitting in our first break as part of our special coverage. who is mueller looking at next? stay with me.

are you ready to take your wifi to the next level?

then you need xfinity xfi. a more powerful way to stay connected. it gives you super fast speeds for all your devices, provides the most wifi coverage for your home, and lets you control your network with the xfi app. it's the ultimate wifi experience. xfinity xfi, simple, easy, awesome. our special coverage continues now. i'm joined by our friend and nbc contributor howard fineman who's been talking with roger stone today. what have you learned, howard? >> i've learned roger stone is defiant, playing for time, issuing through me a couple of statements that go to denying the particulars that people may

assume from the indictment and raising questions about how the federal prosecutors might prove this case against the russians since it's unlikely the russians will show up. to redo the second tweet i asked him -- text i said when did you learn that guccifer was the russians? he said today that is still an allegation and unproven at a trial. do you expect the russians to show up for trial? will there be an inspection of the dnc servers? so he's saying if you come after me i'll demand to see all of the dnc servers which is what republicans have wanted to do for a long time. he knows, as does paul manafort, and the two of them have worked on and off for 35 years. they know that their chief protecters here ironically

enough are donald trump and vladimir putin. there are no two people in the united states more interested other than bob mueller of what is said over in helsinki finland and roger stone and paul manafort. >> do you think mueller is trying to use tonight's indictment on the stone front into scare people into toe cal cooperation? >> no question. roger can be as defiant as he wants. there are other people here and the question now is that the witch-hunt has found its coven in moscow, who knew what when and who communicated with them knowingly. you don't have to know the identity of the person you're in a conspiracy with but you have to know about illegal behavior. but everybody in washington knew the russians were behind this. the notion that roger stone didn't have a clue is ridiculous. >> something we were exploring earlier with his former associate sam nunberg. a lot to get to. howard fineman, we appreciate

you joining us. up next, the reverend al sharpton's reaction to this mueller news and more straight ahead.yo

i'm april kennedy and i'm an arborist with pg&e in the sierras. since the onset of the drought, more than 129 million trees have died in california. pg&e prunes and removes over a million trees every year to ensure that hazardous trees can't impact power lines. and since the onset of the drought we've doubled our efforts. i grew up in the forests out in this area and honestly it's heartbreaking to see all these trees dying. what guides me is ensuring that the public is going to be safer and that these forests can be sustained and enjoyed by the community in the future.

we have more reaction on those mueller the mueller charges and since this is the beat, we might get into other developments. i am joined by al sharpton. and rapper young paris who is on jay z's label, rock nation. when you look at this week's news what is on your mind? >> i look at the question of this mueller indictment. when you see 12 russians indicted, then inform the president in advance and he still calls it a witch hunt and still going to meet with the president of russia. other than if he is going to say, i want you to extradite the

12 russians, what is there to talk about. we are getting close to him really showing his true nature. >> what's on your mind? >> i was watching the fbi hearings yesterday and that was crazy. the questions all over the place. it was like who is on third, what's on second and the guy was like, i've been instructed not to answer that question. and it was just crazy to me. and then the lady joins in at the end. and asks the one guy, have you taken your medication. i was just watching that like what's going on. >> republicans finally found something they don't like about the fbi. >> first time.

discrediting. now, you have arch republicans doing this. it is amazing to me and i think that you are seeing the world look at this country saying what is going on. i was watching the president in england today, and i was there weeks ago when a lot of the progressives were getting ready for the march. and it is almost like we are the laughing stock of the world because of our inconsistency of our country, and everybody is seeing that because of donald trump. >> looking at something we touched on earlier in the show, mueller saying you have these russian military agents trying to trick us and working on stolen documents. i mean, this is scarey stuff and anyone who looks at this should care about what is happening to our democracy, not which side

should benefit in the short run. >> they had a false site saying black lives matter, quoting many of us dealing with the question in what happened in ferguson. this is frightening and we should feel vulnerable with it. >> young paris, i got to meet you. and when we talk about who is fallen back, i understand you have one that might give us a little lighter moment on a big week. >> i just came off tour in africa. and getting off the plane, all i am seeing is this dance craze. a kid in new york created the dance. i don't know if you guys maybe have audio here. >> this is the dance right here. ♪

>> how do you feel about it? >> so it is crazy with these things right now. because of the internet and we have so much to viral videos, now, it is so incredible to see millions of viewers and celebrities and people impactfully impacting this song. >> and the culture can spread more quickly. i saw simon says, your big hit has views. >> and it goes away and it comes back. and it is a new bunch of kids, rediscovering the record all over again. so just amazing in that way. >> these kids are becoming dejays. >> everyone can share whatever they find. >> a lot of kids didn't know what simon says was. >> to bring it all together, i

don't think people knew when you recorded that song, you were talking about bob mueller. thanks for being a part of our panel. as always, check out politics nation. we'll be right back.nt the clock is ticking on irreversible joint damage. ongoing pain and stiffness are signs of joint erosion. humira can help stop the clock. prescribed for 15 years, humira targets and blocks a source of inflammation that contributes to joint pain and irreversible damage. humira can lower your ability to fight infections, including tuberculosis. serious, sometimes fatal infections and cancers, including lymphoma, have happened; as have blood, liver, and nervous system problems, serious allergic reactions, and new or worsening heart failure. before treatment, get tested for tb. tell your doctor if you've been to areas where certain fungal infections are common, and if you've had tb,

hepatitis b, are prone to infections, or have flu-like symptoms or sores. don't start humira if you have an infection. help stop the clock on further irreversible joint damage. talk to your rheumatologist. right here. right now. humira. inthe full value oft replace your new car? you'd be better off throwing your money right into the harbor. i'm gonna regret that. with liberty mutual new car replacement, we'll replace the full value of your car. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪

you need a higher standard of higher scraftsman. craftsmanship see for yourself at the lexus golden opportunity sales event. experience amazing at your lexus dealer.

this is a story about mail and packages. and it's also a story about people. people who rely on us every day to deliver their dreams they're handing us more than mail they're handing us their business

and while we make more e-commerce deliveries to homes than anyone else in the country, we never forget... that your business is our business the united states postal service. priority: you ♪ quite a news day.

richard angle is broadcasting live. adam schiff joins. thanks for watching. "hardball" is up next. mueller indicts. let's play "hardball." good evening, i'm steve kornacki in for chris matthews. tonight, 12 kremlin officials with russian military intelligence agency are facing charges in the united states. 12 defendants are accused of conspiracy to commit an offense against the united states. charges of computer crimes, identity theft and money laundering. most compelling evidence to date