my thanks to andrea for letting me sit in. tune in to "hardball" with chris matthews tonight for an interview with lynch. now stephanie ruhle. >> good afternoon, everyone, my partner ali velshi is off today. it is tuesday, october 18th. let's get smarter. >> secretary of state mike pompeo speaking about the investigation into the death of murdered journalist khashoggi. >> we take this matter very seriously. they made clear to me they, too, understand the serious nature. they also assured me they will conduct a complete, thorough investigation of all of the facts surrounding mr. khashoggi and they will do so in a timely fashion and this report itself will be transparent for everyone to see. i told president trump this morning we ought to give them a few more days to complete that

so we have a complete understanding of the facts. we have a long, since 1932, a long strategic relationship with the kingdom of saudi arabia. >> that's a very soft commitment that the secretary got from the saudis. i don't understand why the united states is not sending our own investigators. >> i know the president has been looking for ways to delay any sort of decision on this. he's very reluctant to confront the saudis because the u.s. partnership. >> with that being said, saudi arabia's been a very important ally of ours in the middle east. >> they're going to stand by their man. >> it gave me real chills reading that op-ed because we always talk about, as we should, that journalism is a search for truth. but when you read khashoggi's words, you're reminded, i was reminded, that it's also about freedom. >> 19 days out. the midterms are entering the homestretch. >> he has been told by his

advisers you can't just go out there and tout your achievements. you actually have to stir up your base and energize them sort of through grievance. >> i think two words are going to define the night of the 2018 election in the next three weeks. one is kavanaugh. the other is caravan. >> isn't that clever, mr. gingrich. we begin with new developments in the wake of the apparent murder of "washington post" journalist kamal khashoggi. the trump administration is pulling out of a major investment conference. people call it the davos of the middle east. hosted by saudi arabia. as it reveals new information from its fact-finding mission overseas. secretary of state mike pompeo, who just came back last night from meeting with both turkish and saudi arabian officials, told reporters the united states will wait for the saudis to complete their investigation before making a decision on how or if the united states should respond. he was asked whether the saudis

could be trusted to conduct a fair and impartial investigation. >> we're all going to get to see the response that the kingdom of saudi arabia takes with this. we'll get a chance to determine, all of us will get a chance to make a determination with respect to the creditedabled bi the work that went into it. they made a personal commitment to me and the crown prince also made a personal commitment to the president when he spoke to him. >> it's hard for me to even hear that. moments later, treasury secretary mnuchin tweeted, quote, just met with president trump and secretary pompeo and we have decided i will not be participating in the future investment initiative summit in saudi arabia. end quote. several high-profile government leaders already pulled out of the conference. corporate america seemed to be steering the moral compass before government was. joining me now from the white house is nbc's hans nichols.

all right, hans. did pompeo get into any specifics around speaking with crown prince mohammad bin salman? it's tough for me to listen to, well, they're telling us their involvement. the involvement would specifically be the crown prince. >> right. well, look, not a lot of specifics unless you think a few, a few more days, counts as specific. clearly you see from secretary of state pompeo they want to set a deadline. they just don't want, stephanie that deadline to be firm. the watch words from mike pompeo were transparency and seriousness. he did hint there there may be a parallel u.s. investigation going on. when he talked about the time line and what he wants the saudis to wrap up, he then said the u.s. would be determining its credibility. to me, stephanie, that's an indication that u.s. intelligence channels, and we know they have all kinds of assets, are also looking into this and assessing just how credible the saudis are going to be and whatever explanation they

come up with, steph. >> listen, i'm no intelligence expert, but in terms of seriousness, for those who are trying to understand what happened to this man, it was stunning to watch mike pompeo sit there, meeting with the crown prince, sort of smiling, expression, basically in the identical photo we have seen, you and i over last ten years watching investment manager after investment manager get a big fat check from mbs. did pompeo give any indication he knows anymore? we, the united states, know anymore about khashoggi? >> no, and he was asked and he didn't respond to that. he didn't respond to questions on whether or not there was a firm deadline. what you have from the secretary of state is an attempt to buy some time. they still need to figure out what they need to do. after pompeo met with president trump, president trump had his intel briefing. that was scheduled for 11:30.

i should say it was on his schedule. so, you know, u.s. intelligence assets have a lot of information. the question is, how are they going to marry and maybe harmonize that information with what the long-term u.s. goals are. you heard it from the president. you heard it from pompeo as well. there are other strategic interests that the u.s. has with saudi arabia throughout the middle east. and the question is, at what cost will they go to preserve that strategic relationship, stephanie. >> all right, thanks, hans nichols. now let's get the very latest on the khashoggi investigation. turkish crime scene investigators have completed another search of the saudi consulate where it is believed he was murdered. hours before a team also searched the consul's home, using an ultraviolet light to look for blood stains. here in the state, "the washington post" published, it is chilling to read this thing, his final column in which he urges free expression in the arab world, arguing, quote, arab

governments have been given free rein to continue silencing the media at an increasing rate. with me now, david rothkoth, a visiting scholar at the coarnege endocumewment who focuses on fon policy. when you read the final column and think about where we've been the last 16 days, it's stunning. is his prediction true? as you look at the meeting pompeo just had and still not confirming whether or not we know if he's dead. was jamal khashoggi right that this becomes a one-day news story and silence? >> well, i don't know that it's a one-day news story. but i think there is a dark irony in his column. because he's talking about freedom of expression. and of course what we're seeing from the white house and from the saudis is an effort to cover up the truth. the truth about a guy who died because he sought freedom of expression.

that's deeply disturbing for americans because we take freedom of expression for granted. but in the middle east in many countries, they are getting used to this. and i don't think many of them expected to see the full truth. a lot of the responsibility for getting to the kind of truth that khashoggi was seeking to be displayed freely in the press is going to fall on others, other than the saudis, and it's very mysterious, perhaps not mysterious, but peculiar that the united states is deferring to them still in this particular case. >> so this administration is very good at moving the news cycle along. the president is very good at branding and marketing. so they come out today and steve mnuchin said i'm not going to the summit anymore, i'm out. so that puts out a positive statement to those who are deeply concerned. but at the same time, mike

pompeo did not demand to see or hear the tapes that turkey claims to have that show khashoggi's apparent killing. what does that tell you? >> it says they're not interested in getting to the truth, they're interested in covering it up. the mnuchin decision was clearly a public relations decision. this davos in the desert is now the dud in the desert. >> there's nothing for him to see at this point. >> i think that's right. i think, you know, we're in the cover-up stage. we're going to get into the stage where them present a story they think they can sell. you see the intelligence community in the united states actually believes this goes to bin salman. and if the democrats win in november, we're likely to see investigations into who knew what. >> that's a whole lot of ifs. i go back to bob woodward's

book. where, you know, it seemed people in the intelligence community or -- would sort of humor the jared/mbs relationship when they knew there was nothing to come from mbs but they humored it. someone lost their life. how real is this going to get? especially if democrats don't win? >> well, look, you know, back then in those days you had lindsey graham. you had mar cco rubio. you had other people continuing to put up the front of a good relationship with saudi arabia. you've seen a big change in the republican side -- >> in words. just as i said, mike pompeo didn't salem see the tapes. we're saying, oh, well, let me see the consulate. the walls were already painted. i mean, come on. >> no, look, i totally agree with you. from the administration side, it's a question of whether a bipartisan consensus will emerge in the congress to impose

sanctions to do investigations and to seek what the president should be seeking. but it's not going to come from the white house. we know that. it's not going to come from pompeo. we know that. it may not come from the congress. i do think it's interesting that once again we have the united states intelligence community coming to a conclusion and finding the president arguing against it. this is identical to the russia case where they came to a different conclusion and, indeed, it's identical in the sense that back then the president accepted putin's offer, or wanted to -- >> said he didn't do it. >> to do his own investigation. well, i know, but that would have been a sham. and this investigation by the saudis is clearly going to be a sham. >> david, thank you so much. a quick factual reminder to our audience. when you hear from the president over and over again, listen, we got $100 billion arms deal, he's lying to you. thus far, we have a $14 billion deal. i'm not saying that's not a lot

of money. but it's a far cry from $100 billion. so ask yourself the question, why is the president lying? next, former new york city mayor michael bloomberg tells a south carolina audience what he thinks about president trump's trade policies. we're going to tell you why bloomberg says they're, quote, disastrous and none sensensical. we're watching themarkets. here's a live look at the dow. down just over 300 points today. i landed. i saw my leg did not look right. i was just finishing a ride. i felt this awful pain in my chest. i had a pe blood clot in my lung. i was scared. i had a dvt blood clot.

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i think the trade policies of this administration are disastrous for america and trump talks about america first. okay. not good for us. they are not good for rest of the world. >> that of course was former new york city mayor michael bloomberg, my former boss, hitting the president on his trade policies. and now the administration is ratcheting up the pressure in the trade war with china, pulling the united states out of an international postal treaty. while bloomberg agreed with some of the president's criticism of chinese treatment of u.s. businesses, he added that the administration's policy of trade sanctions does not, quote, make any sense at all. the former new york mayor also had a message for the president on his renegotiation of nafta. >> i think it is good that trump

renegotiated nafta by changing the name of the deal. that's really all they did. >> that's some shade being thrown. joining me, my dear friend and cnbc contributor ron insana. let's talk about what mike bloomberg had to say about the president and trade and sort of his overwhelming message was global trade made the world more peaceful. as we work together aligning our interest. and he said, guys, the way you manage these ups and downs is to create a floor, not walls, not ceilings. that's the opposite of what trump is doing, yet the business community is saying rock on with your bad self, trump. >> some in the business community. not everybody. certainly with those where they may be benefiting from higher prices. consumers are not benefiting from it. but i think mike bloomberg is spot on. we've talked about this in the past. tariffs are not the best way to alter behavior.

some, if you read bob woodward's book, have pointed out that maybe president trump and his top trade adviser peter navarro believe these tariffs on china are an end, not a means. but they are looking to competitively disadvantage china over the long run in order to presumably bring manufacturing back home. but interrupting these multilateral agreements we have. which have created a relative peace and prosperity since the end of world war ii is a much better way to go. they're trying to isolate china. >> so mike bloomberg is far from a -- far from a weak character. he's not shy about sounding tough. the overall message has been you have to work together and in harmony. it's similar to his business style, all in, no bluff. an enormous amount of waste in

his wake. that's how his business is run. is the thing we're missing, with trade and tariffs, the long-term impact of this and the relationships we're going to have with these other countries? because trump is basically saying we're the biggest, that's what he basically told justin trudeau. >> and with his economic nationalism in brazil, in italy, trying to deconstruct the administrativ administrative state. >> if it's so ridiculous, why is he successful? >> i don't know. it's pockets of people who are disenfranchised economically and angry. we see it all around the world. the president said the european union was created to disadvantage the united states. the european union is the direct result of world war ii. tying germany's economic fate to that of france which was done with the treaty of rome in 1957, led to the european common market, led to the european union. the entire idea was to keep

germany from being militarily aggressive and join europe as opposed to fight europe. >> the answer you just gave me was both correct, nuance and sophisticated. >> thank you. >> that is the opposite of what helped president trump win the election. >> correct. >> when president trump goes through the i differed tough on trade, he checked it off. it is one of the first primaries for 2020. >> he says he's looking into iran, right. knowing how president trump just won and the people who say it, rock on, what is mike bloomberg in for? no one's listening -- not no one. not enough people are listening to your correct answer. >> well, we don't know. hillary clinton got almost 3 million more votes than donald trump. where those people who did not participate in the economic recovery post-crisis may have

been most vocal and may have felt the worst. some of that obviously is going away. the president can run on a good economy. we don't know what it will be like in 2020. listen, mike bloomberg is speaking the truth about global trade. his words about nafta were spot on. they just literally changed the name. if we had changed the transpacific partnership, all those things that happened with this renegotiation might have taken place automatically. >> in general, nothing is either all good or all bad. >> correct. >> could renegotiating this international shipping deal, this treaty, it's 144 years old. >> yes. >> what i read, it seems like why does china get to ship stuff at such a deep discount? >> i don't disagree with that. that's a small thing. you're talking about a couple billion dollars in a $20 trillion economy. >> i'll take a couple billion. >> of course, renegotiate it. we don't have to pull out. everything is either you're in or you're out, you're up or you're down, you win or you lose. that's not the way, you know, a

global alliance works or should. >> except of course when it comes to nafta 2.0, trump served everybody. he tore it up in name. so he got to go to a rally. they said, you're right, mr. president, you did it. what he actually executed was nafta 2.0. >> right, the u.s./mexican -- >> that's a little bit like the ymca dance. >> it's a 25 year old treaty. but this is not groundbreaking. the biggest was the world trade organization which includes 180 countries. this was three. >> that was complicated to get done. ron, thank you. ron insana. right now, 4,000 migrants are headed to the u.s. border. why are they going? they're fleeing violence in honduras. but as they make their way north, president trump is taking to twitter, threatening to call in the military and close up the southern border. he wants to stop funding to countries like honduras when

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welcome back to velshi and ruehl. today, you just got ruehl. there's a lot happening in the trump administration this week. in other news, we might not have talked about yet. president trump has appointed washington lawyer pat sipiloni to be the next white house counsel. he's replacing don mcgahn who announced last month he would step down after brett kavanaugh's supreme court confirmation. wednesday was mcgahn's last day on the job. the trump administration wants pharmaceutical companies to disclose prices in tv ads and says patients deserve to know the costs upfront. thank you, mr. president. the new proposal applies to every brand name drug covered in medicare and medicaid. the drug industry's main trade group says companies are willing to show prices online but not in tv commercials. how come, guys? and that doing so would violate compa company's first amendment rights. renewed attention on the u.s./mexico border as a migrant

caravan goes to 4,000 people. as new report revealed a spike in border crossings last month, prompting new threats from president trump. he demanded action from mexico to stop this onslaught and if it is unable to do so, it will call up the u.s. military and close the southern border. nbc's national security and justice reporter julia ainsley who i urge you to follow on social media. this woman has been on this story for months. let's start with this migrant caravan. it's drawing not only response from the trump administration but also from mexico. what is it? who's on it? and walk us through how everyone's reacting to it. >> i'd love to, stephanie. what we're looking at is essentially two groups. one is further closer to the mexico/guatemala border. the other one is in southern guatemala at this point. there are about 1,500 in one group, 2,000 in another group. and they altogether are coming up slowly. what mexico has done to respond

is sent 500 police to their border. they say they're there to quell protests. there are a number of people there trying to make sure that these protesters who are there to ensure the safety of the migrants don't cause a scene. they haven't ensured what president trump wants them to ensure, that they won't even get into mexico. what the u.s. wants is to keep this as a fight between the guatemala/mexico border and not let them come to the u.s. border. a lot of this is seasonal. it's not necessarily that something has prompted this. it was a group, a leader who brought these people at first. they're fleeing violence. they're fleeing poverty, political instability. they've gotten to a point where they're desperate enough and the weather is cool enough that they want to come up. but of course this comes at a time where the u.s. is trying to crack down on people coming up to its own border. we saw those tweets from the president threatening just that. that will be in secretary of state mike pompeo's ear as he

goes to mexico this week to meet with his counterparts. >> you're reporting new numbers reflecting this spike in border crossings. you wrote border patrol agents have apprehended more than 40,000 undocumented immigrants in september. clearly they're doing their job. up from more than 37,000 in august. when i read president trump's tweets, he's blaming democrats over and over. so first of all, democrats are not -- are not in power. and in the last go-around, the last time president trump wanted to get a bill passed that included more border patrol, money for the border patrol and included his wall, as well as a number of other things, it didn't get enough votes from republicans. so how is it he's blaming democrats here? >> that's a good question. i think it's a classic example of scapegoating. it's also unclear that any of his policies have really contributed when we're already seeing this rise.

we're now getting back to levels we saw under the obama. many of them are children traveling by themselves. i was at the border last week where they're growing this tent city for up to 3,800 my graigra children. it's unclear this family separation policy we saw over the summer had any impact. they're fleeing such desperate situations, it seems sometimes they send their child alone, simply to get their child out of a place where their lives are in danger. as we see the president start to dangle the idea of family separation again, it's important to remember that for a lot of these people, they're so desperate, they would separate themselves. they would stay behind in central america and send their children on their own just to escape these conditions that we're talking about, stephanie. so we'll see a lot come up. it's a lot of rhetoric. it will rally the president's base. it's easy to blame democrats.

it's easy to look at sheer numbers at the border without understanding this full picture and what exaactually will bringy change. >> this woman's reporting second to none. thank you. we're counting down to the midterm elections. just 19 days away. next, we're going inside the secret strategy room and facebook, nbc news got a firsthand look at how the company is trying to protect its platform from foreign intelligence. former president barack obama is out with a new message, encouraging young people to vote and calling out the most common excuses for not voting. see if this one applies to you. >> i don't care about politics. that's actually what people in power are betting on, that you'll check out, that you won't vote, and when you opt out, that's what allows other people to essentially fill that void. it allows them to do nothing about the things that you'd like to see government do. so if you really want to throw a wrench in their plans, throw

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we're now 19 days out from the midterm elections that could change the balance of power in congress or not. and the shadow of the massive influence campaign during the diagnose election still looms large months after a report from the senate intelligence committee detailed russian efforts to sway voters. and nearly a year after

cambridge analytica dominated the headlines, social media companies are taking a hard look at their responsibilities. nbc's jolene kent got a firsthand look at facebook's efforts to stop disinformation during the election season. >> we went inside facebook headquarters. this is what they're calling the war room to protect american democracy. but the real question here is, is this window dressing or is this a real solution? this morning, facebook is on offense after facing fallout from fake news and hacking scandals. many users wondering what can be trusted in our feeds, ahead of the midterm elections, just 19 day it s away. now the social media giant launching a new war room so it can strike back. >> roughly 20 -- >> reporter: we went behind closed doors to see how it will work. the goal, prevent another 2016 when russia-linked accounts

spread misinformation to millions of facebook users. inside the war room, 2 dozen teams from security to instagram, representing 20,000 facebook employees, soon to be working 24/7 to track suspicious behavior. how much pressure do you feel? >> a profound sense of responsibility and we take this work really seriously. >> facebook is running trill ruo prepare for the worst. >> we're monitoring the amount of political content in the u.s. that might be of foreign origin. one of our dash boards here monitors that and sets off an alarm if we see a spike in that activity. >> facebook's war room is a direct response. 87 million users data improperly shared with politico consulting firm cambridge analytical back in march, putting ceo mark zuckerberg in the hot seat on capitol hill. this summer, facebook disclosed

it blocked 1.3 billion fake accounts. and last month, 30 million accounts hacked, allowing cyber criminals to read your private messages and impersonate you. how confident are you an american voter will be safe from disinformation on election day? >> i mean, our goal is to make sure that the public debate around the election is authentic. that's our priority and that's what we're laser focused on. >> nothing has changed in that area. >> critics like recently departed facebook chief security officer told us exclusively that social media companies are not doing enough. >> there's been small improvements in campaign security but we've not seen the kind of massive upgrade in campaign infrastructure you would need to stand against a professional hacking agency like that. >> you might be wondering what you can do yourself about this with disinformation coming both from foreign sources and inside our own country. you see a facebook post like

this. you see these three tiny dots notice corner of the post. select that, go down to give feedback on the post if you think something is shady. then you can pick from any of these here. of course you've got your classics. also now they've added incorrect voting information, spam, hate speech, terrorism, unauthorized sales, false news even. so there's different ways to report that yourself. facebook said they can turn around a report in about two hours. >> the big issue, if i'm somebody who just consumes news, i don't know if it's fishy. i don't know if it's not true. that's what i'm receiving my news from to get smarter. >> that's exactly right. i asked the facebook executives about that exactly. what they say is they're not in the business of necessarily taking down content, which is very controversial. they want to downgrade it or have a third party fact checker get involved. but this has been the most important part of this argument, what they actually need to do, what responsibility facebook

really has here. it's very powerful. >> sister, please, i'd like to remind our audience, while facebook and other social media platforms likes to say, they're not media organizations, they're different from us, they are. do you know where they make their money? advertisements. most likely if i'm losing an advertisement here at msnbc, i'm not losing it to another tv network, i'm losing it to facebook. don't let them tell you they're not a media organization, they are. thank you so much. now, i want to turn to "new york times" national politics reporter ested hearden and eugene scott, political reporter for "the washington post." you have focused on government in recent articles. >> there's a lot of really important governor's races. we know there's a big fight happening. but in states like florida, georgia, michigan, wisconsin, you have an opportunity for democrats to have a different type of blue wave but in the statehouses. this is places where democrats

have gotten their butts kicked over the last ten years in state legislatures and statehouses. where they have -- where they've really gotten beat. but now they have an opportunity to bring that back. >> eugene, we're going technical with butt kicking here. if voters out there are saying they're sick of washington. they want things to be better. on both sides, if the idea is our government leaders are the best we have, when you see a guy like chris collins facing indictment, to raise $80 million, bob menendez in new jersey, having gone through -- 80, excuse me, and the fact you see bob menendez possibly going to win in the state of new jersey, is this the best the parties put forward? >> it's certainly who they are putting forward. we're seeing a lot of voters who are not looking forward to voting in this election ask that

question as well. that's why some of them, so many of them aren't coming out, particularly from the groups that do not come out very often during midterms such as millennial voters. we've seen young voters suggest maybe they'll show up at some slightly higher rates this midterm than in previous years but they do not believe that many of the candidates that have been presented to them have their best interest in mind and are going to be significantly different from what has been brought to washington in previous cycles. >> i want to make sure 80, not $80 million. it's just stunning to me, people who have legal issues still running and potentially could win their races. ested, we've heard the president try to make these elections national. are the candidates who are truly running supporting that idea or did they want to make it local? because when the president is pushing this idea, for example that all democrats are super progressive and all democrats, you know, want to push one agenda, i'm looking at people,

like, sherrod brown, bob casey, they don't fall under that. so what do the actual candidates want to do? >> it depends on what side you're talking about. the democrats are trying to make this election local. you have a lot of them who rarely mention president trump and are trying to hammer away at those legal issues. out in michigan where i just was, the candidate talks about infrastructure first. talks about clean water in places like flint. you have stacey abrams in georgia talking about medicaid expansion. the republican opponents are mimicking the president in trying to paint the democrats with that big broad brush. they're saying this is a party that's gone too far and using things like social movements. using things like colin kaepernick. to have more kind of inflammatory whistles to paint the democrats as a party that has lost touch with americans. you see that all across the board and house and senate races. >> eugene, i want to cover voter requirement issues. we've seen it in a number of

states but specifically in north dakota. this is impacting the native american population there. that could affect a close senate ra race. walk us through that. i know you've been talking georgia and the voter registration issues there. >> i was talking to activists today about a supreme court decision that recently upheld the state of north dakota's right to require native american people in the state to have an identification card that has a residential address opposed to a p.o. box address in order to vote. many of the native american residents of north dakota actually have a p.o. box address on their identification card and therefore if they do not fix that in time for the midterm elections, may not be able to vote or have their vote counted. >> it's not just them. especially a lot of people who live in rural america have a p.o. box. they don't have a street address. >> absolutely. it's not just people of color. it's not just people from tribal communities. but disproportionately, in that

state, native americans are well represented in communities that have a p.o. box. in the state of georgia, we're talking about the exact match system that requires people to have their name on their registration be identical to their name perhaps on their i.d. card. something that's a hyphen or an apostrophe could turn up making your application pinged and many are feeling their vote won't count because of this. >> every vote counts. doesn't matter who you support. it's one of the best parts of being an american. i encourage everyone to get out there and do it. thank you so much. next, deputy attorney general rod rosenstein defending the russia investigation despite president trump's claims that it is a rigged witch hunt. what rod rosenstein told "the wall street journal," that is next. but first, this morning, the trump name taken down from an apartment building in manhattan

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welcome back. as always, we have one eye on the markets. now down just over 400 on the day. the explanation at this point seems to be the ongoing, the continued concerns of this trade war or potential trade war with china. remember, it was just two days ago the market was up over 500 points and the president said, let's celebrate this great market and why isn't the mainstream media covering it. we cover the up days. we cover the down days. on the down days, the president likes to point to the fed. we haven't heard that today. let's turn to rod rosenstein. a little more than a week after president trump signalled he's not planning to fire rosenstein. in an interview rosenstein defended the mueller probe as appropriate and independent. he went on the say at the end of the day the public will have conferr confidence that the cases we brought were warranted by

evidence and it was an appropriate use of resources. joining me msnbc legal analyst. at this point, maybe people won't complain about how much the mueller investigation is costing since, i don't know how much did we pull in from manafort, 50 million bucks. i think that covers it. rosenste rosenstein's comments contradict the narrative we have heard from the president, rudy giuliani that social security a rigged, hoax, witch hunt. how do you think trump is interpreting this? >> i think it's interesting that on the heels of the meeting they had a week ago. >> trump and rosenstein. >> it's very unusual for a prosecutor overseeing an investigation to speak to the media about an ongoing investigation. what we have seen in this investigation is first bob mule

hae -- mueller has been silent. when rosenstein has announced the indictments and he's done the announcing of those indictments, he's only been talking about things that have already been put in the public through the indictments. here he is giving an interview on the kind of check in on the investigation which i find very unusual for him to be doing and it's one of dtwo things. he's trying to placate the president by saying i serve at the pleasure of the president and i can be terminated or he's sending a message saying that you are filling up the vacuum bob mueller has left with all of your rigged witch hunt talk and comments, but what we're doing is absolutely appropriate. it's completely independent and is following the evidence that we are learning. >> maybe he's also making the argument that what we're doing here isn't going to touch trump personally and that's what

matters to him most, which takes me to michael cohen. we have learned from michael cohen that he is spending more time meeting with federal prosecutors following his guilty plea in august. we heard the president calling him mostly a pr guy. he did a little work of him. he's saying anything he's in trouble for had nothing to do with trump. what do you think is going on? >> he also pointed out he lied under oath. michael cohen. >> trump pointed out michael cohen did. >> that's why he pointed the finger at donald trump that cohen pled guilty to. he has no choice but to say that cohen is lying under oath. we have heard that michael cohen has met with prosecutors from bob mueller's office and with the southern district of new york and the new york attorney general's office. that's the whole gammet of

investigations going on. >> we don't know what he said. >> if he's met with them for 50 hours, which is what has been reported, he's got information they care about. if what he were to do is to say, you know what, donald was a good guy. he didn't do anything. he wasn't involved in anything. neither were his kids. the trump organization is on the up and up. that's a few hours. >> i don't think i have 50 hours worth of any information. >> what they likely are doing, particularly in the trump investigation run out of new york offices both federal and state, they are going back through years and years and years of materials and they have documents. they are showing them to michael cohen. this investigation seems to be expanding rather than narrowing. >> thank you so much. if you had me for 50 hours of information, i would be talk about high school dances i went

to. the big question about the midterms. are they about anything other than president trump? our very own steve kornacki digging in. steve kornacki digging in today is the day you're going to get motivated... get stronger... get closer. start listening today to the world's largest selection of audiobooks on audible. and now, get more. for just $14.95 a month, you'll get a credit a month good for any audiobook, plus two audible originals exclusive titles you can't find anywhere else.

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right now you're in for a treat. steve ckornacki picks up the hour. are you eating your wheaties? are you stretching? getting your naps in? it's 11:00 a.m. out west. 7:00 p.m. in the east. 19 days until the election. the majority of americans say will be the most important mid term of their lifetime. for voters what is this midterm election about? depending on who you ask it's about everything from the economy to brett kavanaugh. if you ask lindsey graham it's about stopping an angry left. >> this is on the ballot. what do you want america to look like? once the election's over, do you want those who lost to try to physically assault those who won are do you want to have an