so i think i have at least five more years. next week will be justice gi ginsburg's 25th anniversary on the supreme court. that is tonight's last word. the 11th hour with brian williams starts right now. rudy giuliani's wild ride. is he changing moving the goal post on the fly as we watch. paul manafort faces the first trial of the mueller investigation just hours from now. and the president's threat to shut down the government, something you just don't hear when the same party controls the white house, house and senate as the 11th hour gets underway on a monday night.

good evening from our nbc news headquarters here in new york. day 557 of the trump administration, 99 days now until the mid term elections. and this might go down as the day we witnessed a change resulting in the new defense strategy. it is about something rudy giuliani has started to say. in the days after the presidential election donald trump's advisers had a message about contacts between russians and members of the campaign team. in the ensuing months as numerous such communications were revealed the message changed. there was no collusion with russia's effort to disrupt the election. on monday president trump's lawyer rudy giuliani presented a third line of defense, even if mr. trump did collude with the russians he committed no crime. my client didn't do it. even if he did it it is not a

crime. hacking is the crime. the president didn't hack. he didn't pay for the hacking he said on cnn. the article goes on. it is just a word choice, said a criminal law professor at georgetown. i'm sure nobody in the justice department has ever investigated collusion but they have investigated conspiracy. and rudy, she said of mr. trump's lawyer, knows better. for the record, the president has said collusion on twitter 94 times. giuliani has been giving interviews throughout the day. here is what he actually said. >> i have been sitting here looking at the federal code trying to find collusion as a crime. collusion is not a crime. >> i'm not sure if that is a crime. you start analyzing the crime. the hacking is the crime. >> giuliani also weighed in on the trump tower june 2016

meeting. this gets complicated. you may recall our reporting that sources say michael cohen is prepared to tell the story to robert mueller that donald trump knew about the meeting before it happened. >> he did not participate in any meeting about the russia transaction. >> the president? >> i'm happy to tell him he wasn't at the meeting. >> the meeting with the russians, how can you be sure that the president didn't know? >> nobody can be sure of anything. >> a long time former trump organization employee said this about such a meeting occurring without trump's knowledge. >> based on my experience with working with trump and everybody who worked for trump, something major, something newsworthy and press worthy would go before trump. i think he would have told donald about the meeting and if it didn't amount to anything it would have been fine.

>> giuliani added to the controversy. he said he heard reports that michael cohen is alleging top level campaign staff met to discuss russian help before the meeting with the russians at trump tower. at the same time giuliani revealed of an alleged second meeting and simultaneously denied that it took place. >> there was another meeting that has been leaked that hasn't been public yet. that was a meeting, an alleged meeting, three days before, according to cohen. he says there was a meeting with donald jr. and jared kushner and paul manafort, gates and possibly two others in which they out of the presence of the president discussed the meeting with the russians. we checked with their lawyers, the ones we could check with. that meeting never, ever took place. it didn't happen. it's a figment of imagination.

>> giuliani's last comment referring to cohen of lying as part of the evolution on the president's former attorney. a few minutes ago giuliani called cohen an honest lawyer. by last week he switched to calling cohen a pathological liar. the president went directly at robert mueller over the weekend as you may have seen, quote, there is no collusion. the robert mueller rigged witch hunt is an illegal scam. is robert mueller going to release his conflicts of interest with respect to president trump including the fact that we had a nasty and contentious business relationship. i turned him down to head the fbi one day before his appointment of special counsel. let's bring in our lead off panel. jonathan lamere white house reporter for the the associated press. former assistant u.s. attorney

for the southern district of new york. and anita kumar, white house correspondent. are we, in fact, watching as has been theorized, an evolving policy? nocollusion, no collusion. >> we shouldn't be thinking of him in legal terms. he is all about the public relations battle. he is the attack dog filling the air waves. this does seem like a deliberate step that we have seen, as you traced there, since 2016. there was no collusion. and yet suddenly today we have giuliani trying a new line suggesting that, well, even if there were collusion that's not a problem because it didn't get anywhere. nothing happened. i think that i will defer to my legal colleagues on the set --

>> i'm about to. >> in terms of whether that is true. i think what we are seeing from giuliani is two things happened today. he gives us the mysterious other trump tower meeting. people i talked to today don't know what he is talking about and they are certainly frustrated. these are trump advisers who wonder what he was doing there? was he trying to get ahead of the story? there was a report coming and he was trying to get ahead of it. it feels like an unforced error. when suddenly he launched into revelations about the stormy daniels payments that took hannity by surprise and sent the white house into a tail spin trying to figure out what he meant. giuliani had to walk that back. as much as the president likes him out there, he likes him muddying the waters, it is his answer to michael cohen, he

wants someone out there to muddy the waters. we have seen mueller's approval rating drop. giuliani has been effective there. it has raised concerns again whether giuliani is too often ahead of his skis and causing more trouble than he is helping. >> as the former fed here at the table, how do the feds view the day that rudy giuliani had and all that he said on television? >> i think as a prosecutor i'm seeing this and i'm seeing a little bit of panic from the president and from rudy giuliani. i have seen it before when a defendant and a defense team starts to feel the facts and the evidence closing in on them and feeling like there is nowhere else to go you will see a change in tone. what has been happening? we are learning more and more about what michael cohen knows. we know the southern district has subpoenaed the long time accountant. we will hear the witnesses in

the manafort case including rick gates. you can see the panic setting in. the big tell is when they lashed out at the mueller team. this is right -- >> it's personal. >> it's personal and nothing new. when everything is coming up against you try to put the prosecution on trial. i have had it done to me. everyone who has been a prosecutor has had it done to them. when you see the president lash out at mueller and the team, know that that is coming, i believe that is coming from a point of weakness and panic. when people panic they start self-defeating. some of the things that rudy giuliani sort of unexpectedly said today and walked back are really problematic for the president. >> anita, you are the closest to this. the view up here in new york, as you have heard, is that it was a day of confusion at minimum. is anyone of the view that it is helpf

helpful? >> maybe the president. if the president didn't think that rudy giuliani was the right guy to be out there he probably wouldn't be out there. what you all said before is exactly right. i have people that are close to the white house, republicans who are scratching their head and saying this is not helpful and the white house saying they are not sure what is going on. remember, this is exactly what happened last time. the white house said on the stormy daniels issue that rudy giuliani had two different versions about that they didn't know what was going on with that, either. if this is a strategy it is one that very few people kboi abono. rudy giuliani is out there. he is brash. he is aggressive. he is doing all of these interviews because the president wants him to. >> once and for all for all the non-lawyers watching who have heard rudy giuliani and others today say more than once collusion is not a crime. what is it? >> he is right. it is something i think the

president made up. the president is the only one who said the word collusion. robert mueller and his team have never used the word collusion. conspiracy is a crime and receiving aid from foreign nationals in an election is a crime. it is word play and so flimsy and transparent. i think it is another sign of desperation. they are trying to sort of -- they have nowhere to go. they are trying to play semantics. it's another sign that they are panicking. >> the president today allowed that he would be perfectly willing to sit down with rouhani of iran with no preconditions. the mueller interview is something different. where do those chances stand as of tonight? >> i think we saw singapore and helsinki. this is probably dohar. we know the president is drawn to the spectacle of these summits. let's remember the criticism the

republicans leveed against barack obama when he made a similar statement. in terms of the mueller interview the reporting has sort of remained the same on this where president trump wants to do it. no one else thinks that is a good idea. giuliani told me over the weekend that they are strongly advising against it. the reasons for that have shifted over the weeks and months but have settled on the idea that they think mueller is biassed and his team of investigators won't give the president a fair shake. other people around the president privately feel like the president just simply couldn't do that. he is someone who though he has lots of practice giving depositions that he would perjure himself as one person told me three times in the first 30 seconds, that this is a no win situation. they think an interview for trump would only go badly for him. the president himself has such faith in himself believes he is

his best salesman and communications director and spokesman, he thinks he can acquit himself. >> it got personal this weekend. now tomorrow begins manafort. tomorrow night, as luck would have it, the president is holding a rally in florida. what is that likely to be like after just reading his twitter feed this past weekend? >> i mean, what have all of them been like? even his official speeches have turned into political speeches. even his official speeches have turned into places where he pushes back on this investigation, talks about the 2016 election and everything else. so we can definitely expect that to be tomorrow in florida. obviously, it is a rally for a particular candidate. he tends to take these and kind of talks about whatever he wants. you can bet he will push back on manafort. he is going to push back on mueller and all of this as he always does. he has actually another rally on

thursday. so we will be seeing him two to three times a week coming up these next few months so he will have a lot of opportunities to talk. >> just to confirm, proper lawyer behavior -- rudy giuliani starts talking about this pre-meeting. as jonathan points out tonight this daily beast story leads us to believe that maggie was calling around about a rumor of a pre-meeting. you are not supposed to introduce a negative story into your client's life unless it's been your practice to go out and grab the bad stuff and try to take ownership of it so when it does some out it doesn't seem so bad. >> i think that is what they are doing. it is sort of a central tenant of trial practice that you want to get the bad stuff out there first. we always say pull the sting, be the first one to let the jury know bad news. i think giuliani is trying to do that. the evidence is starting to pile up. i think the new thing is they are probably seeing or should be

seeing the witness statements from the manafort witnesses. those statements have been turned over to manafort's attorneys. they have been reading the 302s which is the fbi reports of what the witnesses are going to say, rick gates being one of them. an educated guess might be that giuliani knows something is coming and is trying to get out ahead of it. >> we welcome you to the broadcast and we thank our returning veterans. coming up for us on a monday night, we are, as we mentioned, mere hours away from the start of this first trial of the mueller overall investigation. we'll get you up to speed on all things manafort, about the case, how it could impact the president. later, what president trump said today that sounded a lot like something obama once said the difference when obama said it republicans were outraged. the 11th hour just getting underway on a monday night. >> tech: at safelite autoglass,

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♪ just hours from now the first jury trial in robert mueller's russia investigation gets underway. jury selection in former trump campaign chairman paul manafort's federal financial fraud trial begins tomorrow morning in northern virginia. manafort is accused of hiding at least $30 million in offshore accounts to avoid paying u.s. taxes. we should note manafort has pleaded not guilty to all these

charges. our nbc news justice correspondent pete williams points out if manafort is convicted, prosecutors would have powerful leverage for attempting to compel his testimony before a grand jury about whether he knows of any improper dealings between the trump campaign and the russians. the trial itself is not expected to shed any light on russia's meddling. meanwhile, president trump's attorney, rudy giuliani who we might have mentioned in the previous segment, said today he is sure manafort has nothing on president trump. >> he has no information incriminating of the president. i know that for a fact. they can squeeze him, paul manafort does not know anything nor could it possible he did. he was with him for four months. i was there when paul manafort was there. paul manafort was a brilliant gatherer of delegates. >> he was the chairman -- >> he wasn't jared kushner and

the sons and all these other people were really running it. >> note that he was the chairman of the campaign but he really wasn't. here with us to talk about it we welcome barrett berger former u.s. attorney with the eastern and southern district of new york and ken delaney is back with us, nbc news intelligence and national security reporter who will be inside the courtroom tomorrow covering the trial. ken, i would like to begin with a headline from the "new york times" tonight. and it reads russia is not on the docket at manafort's trial but it will be in the air. what would they mean? >> that is well put. one prosecutor said he did not expect the word russia to come up at all in the trial. it is not clear that the jury will be told explicitly that paul manafort worked for donald trump. this is a significant trial in no small part. paul manafort has been a fixture going back to the 1970s.

he ran the campaign of gerald ford, ronald reagan, bob dole and was one of the first people to monetize the service with his old partner roger stone. that is getting us where we are today. he went to work and prosecutors allege he was paid some $60 million for this service over many years of public relations and lobbying. and for reasons that maybe only manafort can explain prosecutors say he tried to avoid paying u.s. taxes on these millions and structured the payments in the form of loans and funded a lavish lifestyle that included a $20,000 watch and multiple multimillion dollar properties. and then when this man fled to ukraine the spigot of cash dried up and then prosecutors say manafort started to commit other fraud by trying to get loans from the real estate that he owns and doing things like

distorting profit and loss statements and overvaluing properties. this is going to be a document heavy case. i fear that it may be boring in some parts. to lead the jury through it the prosecutors have a star witness who is rick gates who is paul manafort's right-hand man who has pleaded guilty. we may not learn very much about russia collusion in this trial, but we will -- it will be reinforced that paul manafort came to the trump campaign essentially broke and that may have made him a ripe target for recruitment by russian intelligence. we will have to see whether he is convicted and whether robert mueller can compel the testimony in exchange for perhaps a lighter sentence. >> counselor, welcome to you. a couple of procedural questions, how long does jury selection take in a trial like

this? >> i think in this case it may be challenging to get a jury. it will be hard to find people who haven't heard about the case or haven't had strong opinions. this may take a few days and into the second week. i think we can expect to see the selection going on for a little while. >> isn't it kind of true that until the u.s. presents its case and we are underway that is not really -- that is the time when we know how this will progress. >> absolutely. i think the minute we hear the prosecutors give their opening statements that will give us a great road map of what we expect to see as far as evidence goes and we will get to hear from the defense. it will be the first time that we get a chance to see what their strategy is going to be in this case. >> what are the feds doing tonight? this is a heavy white board and boxes of documents case, isn't it? it's a paper case. >> exactly. i think they are doing the exact same thing that prosecutors do

across the country av time they have a criminal case. it is the marking of exhibits and making sure you have paperwork together and witnesses are prepped. in a case like this which is a heavy paper case they will be going through those things to make sure everything is in order. >> i have to ask you about the last bit of drama until we begin tomorrow, i guess until opening statements. there could be a deal in this case. isn't it possible? >> it's incredibly possible. we see defendants that want to push it right up to the limit. it is probably one of the more frustrating things as a prosecutor. that definitely happens. i think it would be unloikely i a case like this. >> paul manafort says to donald trump i will work for free. why is that a red flag as the law sees it? >> well, in part because of other evidence. it is pretty clear that paul

manafort was trying to monetize his service to donald trump. we know he was offering private briefings to this russian oligarch. absolutely, a red flag and a potential that he was recruitable by foreign intelligence. that is exactly what is at the heart of robert mueller's investigation whether manafort was involved in any potential coordination with the russian election interference campaign. >> thank you for laying out what begins tomorrow. we may talk about it a time or two on this broadcast in the weeks to come. the one thing president trump said today, when we come back, that will spread legitimate worry in his own party with the mid term elections 99 days away. that's where our conversation goes next when the 11th hour continues.

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as far as the border is concerned and personally, if we don't get border security after many, many years of talk within the united states i would have no problem doing a shutdown. it's time we had proper border security. we're the laughing stock of the world. we have the worst immigration laws anywhere in the world. >> the president doubling down

on his threat to, quote, do a shutdown if congress doesn't find money to pay for a border wall. he first issued the threat over the weekend saying, quote, i would be willing to shut down government if the democrats do not give us votes for border security. republicans on the senate appropriations committee today appeared opposed to that idea. >> i think it would be bad politics for the republican party to shut the government down. we would get blamed. >> no one wins. i think the american people expect us to do our job. >> if the president wants to shut down the government that's his prerogative. i think it would be a mistake and i don't think it will be necessary. >> president trump's threats of a shutdown came days after his private meeting with the republican leadership in the

house and senate. afterward the president said he was open to delaying the border wall debate until after the mid terms. it's an issue that vulnerable candidates and all g.o.p. candidates would like to avoid in the lead up to november. an nbc news poll found the majority of people surveyed disagree with the way the president has handled border security and immigration. a report out today puts it this way. for some vulnerable republicans running in swing districts, not only does the trump bag of tricks not work for them but they believe it actively hurts them. with us tonight to talk about, jeremy peters, political reporter for the "new york times" and jim warren, a political commentator. we'll get into his line of work in just a minute. jeremy, you don't teach political science that i know of, maybe you should. begin with explaining the recent history of government shutdowns long regarded to be a war of last resort between warring

parties, not when the same party controls white house house senate. >> you are absolutely correct. in the short term, at least, when these government shutdowns have occurred they have hurt the party that was viewed as responsible for that. so let's just play this out. president trump shuts down the government presumably by vetoing a bill that congress sends him that does not include funding for the wall. voters look at that and see the chaos and dysfunction in washington and don't vote to hold in power, to keep in power the republican majority that president trump needs to govern and pass his and the republican party's legislative priorities. this is about as clear a case of political self sabotage as i could imagine. then, again, i'm not a republican. i'm not a democrat. i'm not anything. i'm just a journalist who is trying to figure this all out.

the best i can tell from my reporting is that there are a group of republicans that believe heading into the mid terms this will galvinize the most loyal trump supporters who are motivated by president trump's stance on immigration. the way someone put it to me tonight was effectively that this would be a hail mary pass because you look at it this way. they are very likely still to lose control of the house. it it's -- if the election were held today it is likely that would happen. they need to pull something out of their bag of tricks. there are enough of them who believe this might just be it. >> jim warren, you have worked for chicago tribune and the once great new york daily news among them. you love looking at local paper websites across the country to see local news. how do you think this kind of thing would play in the great

state of illinois if people learned that this was the kind of shenanigans going on in washington? >> a firm grasp. we have 99 days to go. we are not sure what is going to happen. we journalists tend to find odd constructs, make dubious distinctions when reality can be obvious this is a matter of how popular the president is and what kind of campaigns are being run. the illinois 6th district is the sort of district that a lot of us think is going to be key even though a colleague of jeremy's made a case today that there is a different sort of district namely more working class district rather than well educated suburban districts. five term congressman is running against a totally novice democrat. as heart as that novice democrat, a former clean energy executive is running against trump, peter roscome is running

away from trump. and it to me is inconceivable in a district of about 125,000, median income 35%. it is inconceivable that republicans can win the house and lose this sort of district which is a short drive from the district in wisconsin over the border of one paul ryan speaker of the house. >> including the town of janesville. >> what is the 60-second version of the headlines involving steve bannon on one side and the koch brothers on the other and the definition of the republican party. >> the koch brothers made the decision that because of trump's position on trade and the economy they were really no longer going to just stand by and watch as republican politicians supported these.

this, of course, is part of the beating heart of the trump movement. you have trade, immigration and economic policy all very populist positions on those issues. that is the -- they are completely opposed to the government getting involved in anything that has to do with the markets. so they just said enough. this is part of a pattern although i think it is the most aggressive step that the koch brothers have taken from a passive resistance that you saw in 2016 when they stayed out of presidential politics. now what they are saying is we will punish republicans who go along with the policies and that is a skirmish in this republican civil war, a magnitude of which we have not seen given how much money they have at their disposal. >> which really raises a good question about what is the trump

strategy going to be about rousing the base? is it shutting down the government? >> he says he is willing to go out six days a week if that is what it takes. will there be interest? >> is it calling brian williams the enemy? i'm not sure if that gets you there. and we don't know what other possible event could happen that plays a part in all of this. but what is the strategy for rousing the base? and can it overcome what seems to be a pretty substantial lack of popularity which is why people like peter roscome going for a sixth term traditionally safe district is running as hard as he can away from the incumbent president. >> well put. two very smart gentlemen helping out our conversation. coming up, one week after threatening iran's president with historic consequences, president trump says he is willing to meet with him with no

preconditions. that was hours before his secretary of state was suggesting some preconditions. today in foreign policy when we continue. i woke up in memphis and told... (harmonica interrupts) ...and told people about geico... (harmonica interrupts) how they could save 15% or more by... (harmonica interrupts) ...by just calling or going online to geico.com. (harmonica interrupts) (sighs and chuckles) sorry, are you gonna... (harmonica interrupts) everytime. geico. 15 minutes could save you 15% or more on car insurance. man: we hold these truths to be self-evident.

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so no matter what you trade, or where you trade, you'll only pay $4.95. fidelity. open an account today. i would certainly meet with iran if they wanted to meet. they are having a hard time right now. it was a ridiculous deal. >> do you have preconditions for the meeting? >> no. if they want to meet i will meet anytime they want. good for the country, good for them, good for us and good for the world. no preconditions. if they want to meet i will meet. >> in another dramatic shift from past protocol president trump said today he is willing to meet with iranian president rouhani with no preconditions. that would make trump the first president in 40 years to meet with an iranian leader.

it was a big change in the space of eight days. it was a week ago sunday night when the president tweet threatened the iranian president in all capital letters. never threaten the united states again or you will suffer consequences the likes of which few throughout history have suffered before. before the comment could make traction mike pompeo quickly weighed in to lay down ground rules. >> if the iranians make a commitment to make fundamental changes, reduce their maline agreement and agree that it is worth while to enter a nuclear agreement that prevents proliferation then the president said he is prepared to sit down and have a conversation with them. >> two things to note, the new phrase winding into language, malign behavior.

you might remember when president obama suggested meeting with an iranian leader the republican party was not pleased. here to talk about all of it, retired four star general mccaffrey, former battlefield commander, happens to be former u.s. drug czar. general, if i hired you to give the president the iran brief about the country and about rouhani what would you tell him? >> a couple of concerns. first is i work for both republican and democratic administrations. i think one of the concerns is that we have a national security foreign policy process. it's not bureaucracy but bringing together the key people in government to understand what options are and understand the history and the secondary effects of what we might say or do. i think that process is lacking in this administration specifically for the iran accord

deal. i think the second one is the notion that a personal relationship with senior foreign political leaders is a good one. if you are dealing with angela merkel or teresa may -- when you are dealing with lethal autocrats they could give less of a hoot how friendly you are with them. they have very pragmatic and in some cases murderous objectives to achieve. the president winging it on iran is unsettling. >> speaking of personal relationships with autocrats, i want to play for you what the president said because it gets us into our next subject of north korea wi. >> we met as you know with chairman kim. we got our prisoners back. so many things have happened so positive. but meeting with people, i had a great meeting in my opinion.

the fake news didn't cover it that way. i had a great meeting with president putin of russia in terms of the future, in terms of safety and economic development and protecting israel and protecting everybody. i thought it was a great meeting. >> general, the problem is no sooner had he said that tonight's "washington post" quote newly obtained evident indicates work is underway on at least one, possibly two, liquid fuelled icbms at a large research facility on the outskirts of pyongyang. here we go again. >> exactly, predictably the north koreans probably have as many as 60 nuclear devices. they have the beginnings of an icbm program that they intend to complete that capability. so kim is very straight forward. he is trying to break the

economic sanctions which is starting to occur. he is trying to get the u.s. out of south korea which he is partially achieving because the president came back and said our presence was provocative behavior. that was language right out of the north korean play book. i think the outcome of the singapore summit in particular was to unsettle both south korea and japan. this is not a good outcome. the nuclear threat did not go away. this is a fantasy appreciation of what is going on in the world. >> general, what is the danger of not knowing what was talked about between trump and putin for over two hours together? >> i think it is enormous. if this was franklin roosevelt or eisenhower i would be less concerned about it. at the end of the day i'm not sure why president trump would be confident he is capable of unilaterally handling a kgb

agent like putin. the whole thing was on video for sure and the russians are now selectively using their public understanding of what was said and the deals that were made. the notion that the president would get putin to order the iranians out of syria is lau laughable. foreign policy, this gigantic, wealthy powerful country is a team sport. it's not an individual winging it dealing with other senior leaders particularly when they are people of no honor and who have murderous control over their own populations. >> general, it is always a pleasure to have you on and to get your view point. thank you very much for joining us tonight. >> general mccaffrey from our washington headquarters. coming up, what we learned today about the people our government is watching on board flights in our country. the story when we come back. (vo) what if this didn't

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this is a story you might have heard something about today. it has to do with a spying operation that goes by another name. it is a tsa program that has just been revealed and it is attracting attention and comment from both the world of civil rights advocates and law enforcement officials. under this program, federal air marshals follow and monitor american citizens who are not suspected of any crime. the "boston globe" which broke this story reports dozens of air marshals have themselves internally raised concerns since this initiative launched. nbc correspondent tom costello has the report tonight. >> reporter: the program is called quiet skies. federal air marshals following two to three dozen americans every day through airports and on to planes, even sitting right

next to them. the marshal is told to report back if the traveller changes clothes in a restroom, perspires excessively, fidgets, trembles or stares, uses a phone or computer. they are selected if their foreign travel and other factors raise concerns including criminal records, curious financial transactions, e-mails or phone numbers linked to terror suspects. among those followed, even a flight attendian. >> you have over 2 million a day that travel in and around the united states. you're looking for a threat that is so small, it is less than a needle in the hay stack. >> reporter: but tsa tells nbc news the primary purpose is to ensure they are protected during air travel. we recently talked about it. >> for passengers, they should feel very safe and secure that we have the air marshals. >> reporter: travelers have

never been told they're being followed. >> it should go without saying that government agents shouldn't be monitoring travelers without a good reason for doing so. >> reporter: the air marshals union complains the program is a waste of time. the american public would be better served if they were instead assigned to airport creek is and checking areas so that active shooter events can be swiftly ended. tom costello, nbc news. another break tonight. when we come back, evidence that the trump administration has meant big things in the book business. we learn about the next big book on the way. that when "the 11th hour" continues.

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with unlimited 1.5% cash back on every purchase. chase for business. make more of what's yours. last thing before we go is about what will happen on september 11th of this year. that's the day bob woodward's new book will be published. it is called "fear" and bits donald trump as president. bob woodward who naacp are you was half of woodward and bernstein is 75 years old now. this will be his 19th book. the book is said to have relied on hundreds of hours of interviews with firsthand sources, contemporaneous meeting notes, files, documents and personal diaries. the press for this book has already been superb especially considering it is not out until september. tonight an article on the "washington post" website

reported with a straight face the post had obtained a copy of the press release from simon and shuster announcing the book. bob woodward is an associate editor of the "washington post." he is also a pulitzer prize winning journalist whose name will perhaps be associated with the best piece of reporting this all time. he said he has gone through a rebirth of sorts, including showing up at the homes of important people late at night. the publisher called the book, quote, the most acute and penetrating portrait of a sitting president ever published during the first years of an administration. it is a remind per if nothing else, this presidency has been very good to the publishing business. that's our broadcast for this monday night as we begin a new week. thank you so very much for being here with us. and good night from nbc news headquarters in new york.

>> thanks for joining thus hour. rachel has the night off. we begin with one of the more telling admissions from trump's criminal defense team. one of those nights where you wonder who rudolph giuliani is really trying to help. one way to understand this absurdity is with the absurd camera work that blessed the internet this weekend when this dog got ahold of a go pro camera. the video fits a little of how giuliani is an unreliable narrator. twists and turns have definitely benefited from his telling. so our thanks tonight to the dog who grabbed that camera in his