good night from nbc news headquarters here in new york. tonight on "all in." >> this election is a life and death struggle with a left wing movement, which wants to radicalize america. >> 19 days until election day. >> become radicalized. >> republicans follow their leader. >> amar -- is working to infiltrate congress. >> the widespread campaigns of fear and hatred in the first national election of the trump era. >> left wing mobs paid to riot in the streets. >> restarting its family separation policy. >> we're looking at a lot of things. >> what we know about two secret hearings in the mueller investigation and why this photo that the trump administration didn't want you to see is a corruption smoking gun. >> trust me, i'm like a smart person.

>> and "all in" starts right now. good evening from new york, i'm chris hayes u we are now just 19 days from the first national election since donald trump became president and republicans gained unified control of the federal government. and you might imagine that they would be campaigning on their accomplishments. nearly two years they've had power. but they are not. they are not primarily running on their unpopular tax cut for the rich or their efforts to gut obamacare. no, no, no. instead they're running on this. >> pre-madonna athletes protesting our anthem, left wing mobs paid to riot in the streets. billionaire george soros bankrolls the existence, and dan fiend. >> republicans are desperately trying to hang on power. former republican congressman matt gates tweeted out a video he claimed without any basis showed women and children in honduras being given money to join the caravan and storm the u.s. border at election time.

soros. the president then shared the same video writing can you believe this? and what democrats are allowing to be done to our country. of course, to be clear, there is no evidence the democrats or george soros have anything to do with that video, which for one thing appears to be filmed in guatemala, not honduras, and on twitter a guatemalan tourist said a collection had been taken up for migrants. but people like matt gates and donald trump don't care about evidence or context or the truth here. they care about riling up their base, which is why they are now spotlighting a caravan of migrants fleeing violence and desperately seeking a better life in the u.s. >> the democrats won't vote for the military, they don't like the military. they don't like law enforcement. they don't like borders. people are coming up in caravans, and we have to stop them. >> newt gingrich laid out the

plan explicitly. >> two words are going to define the night of the 2018 election in the next three weeks. one is kavanaugh. and the other is caravan. >> think about that for a second. not the tax cuts, not health care, not anything they've been doing for two years, but the kavanaugh and caravan? gingrich wasn't talking about getting brett kavanaugh on the supreme court either. he was talking about this. >> anger over how the left smeared, engaged in character assassination, lied, used bullying tactics with judge kavanaugh. >> that's the playbook, play up the feeling of threat of victimization even as you run the whole government. democrat abigail spanburger is a cia officer, briefly a substitute teacher at an islamic school. >> what is abigail spanburger

hiding? he doesn't want us to know that she thought at an islamic school tick named terror high, a terrorist breeding ground. >> a high school they're talking about, children in it. republicans ran an ad against democrat nate mcmurray that used the fact that he speaks korean to -- they've demonized -- running in new york as a "big city rapper". >> who am i? i'm antonio delgado. i was raised to believe you're supposed to love your neighbor. you see what they're doing there. that's the republican pac running that, flash images of gang members and drug dealers to portray a nation under siege. >> they don't get it. they talk about -- illegal immigration. nothing happens. we who live here have forgotten. >> perhaps the most odious ad in the entire country, which is saying something in the cycle, comes from duncan hunter, the california congressman indicted for stealing campaign funds.

hunter is smearing his opponent as an islamic terrorist sympathizer even though he's a christian born in san diego with secret service security clearance. >> amar -- is working to infiltrate congress. he's used three different napes to hide his family's ties to terrorism. >> he is being supported by cair and the muslim brotherhood. >> it's a risk we can't ignore. joining me now is amir -- are you surprised by the tenor of these ads? >> not at all. i mean, it's fitting with everything else we've seen. honestly, what are we doing as a nation? we have policies and things we can talk about. this is an deeply un-american ad, if john mccain were with us today, he would be so appalled. he stood up against a woman who tried to disparage president obama on the same line of argument. i think the party of mccain and

the party of reagan, even, is long gone. it's heartbreaking because i have friends who are republican. it's deeply un-american. it's not true. i'm not a security threat. i was given a clearance by the fbi. the security threat is duncan hunter who was criminally indicted for spending a quarter million dollars and the corruption smoking gun that you talked about was when he paid back $60,000. he is guilty. and it's only a matter of time until people hold him accountable. >> i should note, we invited duncan hunter to appear on the program. we did not hear back from him. >> of course not, of course not. >> i would note he probably couldn't pass a background check if he were to get a routine job in the federal government that needs security clearance. >> that's right. for a couple reasons. one, the indictment. two, financial instability. he had to overdraft his account by $35,000. three, his well-known documented excessive drinking. and then fourth, the womanizing. all those things are things that are red flags. if i had any of that in my background i would not have gotten a security clearance. that's why the speaker of the house, paul ryan, republican, stripped of his committee

assignment on the armed services committee. it's not me, not hillary, it's the republicans. >> this is a plus ten republican -- it's a pretty republican district, considered a safe seat before the indictment. it seems to me he could just go after you on the tax cuts and obamacare. he could say i voted for the tax cut bill and my opponent would not have and i voted to repeal obamacare and my opponent would uphold obamacare. is he doing that? >> he's not doing that and he has ten years of a record to run on. what is he doing? he's acting like an amateur. he is. his dad came out and attacked me at a press conference. he can't stand on his own two feet. three polls have us tied, chris. look at his ad, his ad tells you everything. he's clearly threatened. we have policy contrast. i want to expand medicare. he wants to raise the retirement age to 72 years old.

his big, bold idea for people retiring, live longer, work seven more years then i'll give you your earned benefit, not the entitlement, but the earned benefit, a guy who never worked a day in his life after serving our country has not worked a day in his life in congress. he's out drinking and partying. we need somebody who will put country over party, not their wife under a bus, i'm ready to do that. >> here's the question. other than these ads, what is -- what's the race about? i mean, it seems to me you've got a guy who's indicted, so he's backed into a corner, yourself who's trying to paint as a terrorist or whatever. but are the policy contrasts present in the race at all? >> for me they are. he wants to take away health care from 45,000 people in my district who rely on the aca for health care. >> does he defend that vote? >> no, he doesn't talk about it. he just talks about me. he's obsessed with me. this is a guy who won't take personal responsibility for his actions. you'll remember, he blended lz doj for the indictment, he blamed his wife for the indictment.

i don't think his wife signed off on individuals 15 through 18 in that indictment. i know you know what i'm talking about. you talked about it. one of them was her friend. she didn't sign off on that. what he doesn't want to talk about are real issues. he has no leg to stand on. it's unfortunate. welkd debate the real issues. i had a debate two weeks ago, he didn't show up. 18 town halls. this guy shows up to fewer town halls than ted cruz. >> he refuses to debate. >> refuses. his dad came out at a press conference and attacked me. he won't attack me himself. for me, i know there's a lot of resistors who watch your show, my mom is one of them, but my step dad's a vietnam vet and he's a trump supporter. this race for him is not about the left and right, it's about those inside the political machine in washington and those of us on the outside. regardless of whether you're republican or democrat on august 21st, christ, when he got indicted this became about do we want a lawbreaker to be our lawmaker, can we trust somebody to pass laws he can't follow himself, it's about something that transcends partisanship. it's a post -- it has to do with character of our country and the rule of law.

a congressman cannot break the law. >> that's certainly right. what those ads are is his deepest, desperate ability to reset it as precisely a partisan election because he thinks that he can beat you that way. ammar campa-najar, thank you. i want to turn to -- also with me greg sergeant, an opinion writer with a new book out called "an uncivil war." sabrina, you wrote a good piece about this. this is not isolated. it's widespread across a whole bunch of races across the

country. >> absolutely. i took a look at republican political ads. i think what they really revealed is just how far the party has gone to embrace the president's rhetoric and agenda when it comes to immigration, as you said, it extends to people of color, not just hispanic but also african-americans. and the themes that were very clear, trying to link immigrants to violence crime. there was such an emphasis on ms-13 and some of the clips you played there. and that's juxtaposed with these republican canada tats touting their support for trump's border wall. so that what tells you is that the party's fully embraced the politics of fear. i think it's also worth pointing out, of course, that imfwrants, according to most studies are less likely to commit violent crime than native born americans, and also that ms-13 accounts for less than 1% of gangs in the u.s. so it really is about spreading paranoia. we had this conversation a few times on this show before.

we were wondering whether or not the rise of trump would lead to more trumpian candidates, more people who fashion themselves in his image. it's not that you're seeing the candidates emerge on the ballot, you're very much seeing what was once part of the fringe really become the republican mainstream. >> greg, this to me is what's notable, it's a unifying project, steve bannon will go -- for collins. while he's doing that, paul ryan's personal pac is paying for those ads that had antonio delgado as a big city rapper. it's a fringe or establishment thing, it's the core message of the party. >> it's interesting to -- the fact that -- it's really interesting to me, not only do you have the anti-immigrant demagoguery really amped up to 11, but you have george soros in the mix. remember, in 2014, right, there was a lot of this sort of stuff around ebola, and remember scott brown ran crazy ads about ebola crossing the border and so forth. this time soros in the mix, and remember trump's closing ad in 2016, the big statement of bannonite, populist nationalism

how you might describe it, had this combination. it had the hordes invading across the border, the dark hordes and it had soros. it's really a party that has not just taken on the typical trumpian anti-immigrant demagoguery, but it's gone full anti-globalist, pro-bannon -- >> it's the globalist, also happens to be jewish, the globalist paying for the brown hordes to invade you. the right wing governor of hungary, that is explicitly their message, particularly about george soros, but sabrina, the total absence of the -- i thought the trump tweet today was amazing. republicans are getting hammered on preexisting conditions. all republicans support people with preexisting conditions, if they don't, they will after i speak with them. i'm in total support. the president signed off on a lawsuit that would destroy obamacare and take away preexisting conditions but this is the approach all republicans are using right now. >> yes, and it's fairly

remarkable that you really don't see many republicans running on the tax bill that they passed last year, which is the president's signature legislative accomplishment. a lot of that probably has to do with the fact that polling has found that the tax cuts, which of course disproportionately benefitted -- they're increasingly popular with the american public, not a winning argument. you talk about these politics of fear and it's also important to note that this isn't just about a political strategy to secure votes and mobilize the republican base. all of this is ultimately in the service of the president's immigration agenda. in the service of enacting a very draconian immigration law that not only would crack down on undocumented immigrants already in the country, but also try to scale back even legal immigration. and so those are the policy implications of the way in which they're trying to change the way that their base and if not the broader public perceives the issue of immigration in this

country. >> a new book is about these very positions and conditions in the political country and how to try to unwind them. >> well, yes, i mean, the case i try to make is that there's a -- trump sort of fills the space to such an extraordinary degree that, you know, there's a big disconnect at the core of almost all of our debate on this stuff, which is that it took a figure as kind of menacing and hostile to democracy as trump to kind of rivet everyone's attention on the state of our democracy. but there are all these problems that pre-date trump and will outlast him. and so it's -- on every single front, whether it's immigration, whether it's health care, whether it's, you know, mueller, whether it's this or that, whether it's democracy, trump fills the space. and we only talk about trump. but what i argue is that we have to come up with some sort of way of holding onto this kind of pro-democracy energy that's kind of poured out in reaction to trump so that once he's gone, if that ever happens, if that ever happens, we'll be able to sort of sustain that kind of

reformist spirit without him there to galvanize it for us. we shouldn't need a figure like trump to get us all to ask tough questions about the state of our political system. >> and the kick of it to me, sabrina, having looked at these ads, if they win, if they hold the house, they will move for a second round of tax cuts for the richest americans almost immediately. they will run on this and they will use that to do more of what they've done. >> there's cheerily a desire to expand upon the tax cuts. mitch mcconnell openly said there will be another attempt to repeal obamacare. and then, of course, there's been some talk from republican leaders about going after a popular government program such as medicare, medicaid and social security. so it's very clear what the agtd is. the question, of course, is what voters prioritize as they head to the polls in november.

>> 23 months of koch brothers, one month of the caravan. thank you for being with me. next, the president threatens to send u.s. military to the border and considers starting up the family separation policy again. we are fortunate to be joined here by the former secretary of homeland security. that's in two minutes. well, i will say this, if they feel there will be separation they don't come. if they feel there's separation, x1 is here to help.

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and even manage your account. finding your xfinity username or wifi password, restarting your equipment, or paying your bill is easier than ever with x1. x1 help. another reason to love x1. say "teach me more" into your voice remote to get started. well, i will say this, if they feel there will be separation they don't come. if they feel there's separation, in many cases they don't come. >> three weeks before the midterms, president trump is talking about reinstating his least popular immigration policy. one that resulted in the family separations of more than 2,600 children ripped out of the arms of their parents. the renewed interest in this frankly monstrous policy coincides with a record surge of migrant families seeking asylum. it's left the president incensed and this cabinet divided over how to handle things. john kelly and national security adviser john bolton engage in a profanity laced argument outside

the oval office today, including the performance of dhs secretary kirsten neilson. joined by a person who used to have her job, jay johnson. good to have you here. first question, what do you think of the idea of returning to the policy of taking children away from their parents? >> i think it's a bad idea. i think it's a terrible idea. i could not ask a border patrol agent or an immigration enforcement person to rip a child out of his mother's arms. we wouldn't go there. >> well, we didn't go there for a few months. >> in the previous administration. >> yes, right. >> we would not go there. aside from that as you can see from the numbers i have shared with you the shock value of that kind of change in policy only has a limited effect. there was a downturn in the numbers of apprehensions on the southern border for about two month this summer and now they're back up again.

they're back up again to reportedly last month somewhere around 40,000 per month. and so i lived this problem for three years. >> yeah, 2014 when you were there. >> 2014, 2015, 2016, i lived this problem for three years every single day. the lesson learned the hard way was you can do all sorts of things, some of which are controversial to change immigration enforcement policy, send the message of deterrence. but as long as the underlying conditions of poverty and violence in central america continue to exist, a mother is going to make the basic

calculation that it's safer to send my child through mexico into the united states than to keep them in these three countries. >> i'm going to propose a radical reframing of this. i'm not sure you'll go along. >> okay. >> you look at tens of thousands of moms and children and that's the way "the washington post" wrote it up, and in 2014 that was the sense. what's the crisis? apply for asylum, they get it or they won't, but they're not going to hurt anyone. >> big picture, illegal immigration on our southern border is a fraction of what it used to be. in fiscal year 2000, there were 1.6 million apprehensions on the southern border, in recent years in the obama and trump administrations, that number is a fraction, 300,000, 400,000. my second year in office it was the second lowest number since 1972. but you're right, the demographic -- >> the overall majority are folks like this. >> the demographic has totally changed, you're correct. it is no longer single adults from mexico. it is now women and children from honduras, el salvador and guatemala. it taxes resources of our border patrol personnel, our immigration courts, those that have to hear these asylum claims because they almost all assert asylum claims. and as long as the underlying

conditions exist we're going to be dealing with this. and the trump administration is reportedly about to embark upon another very, very controversial policy which, as we can see from the numbers and the facts, had earlier this summer only a limited effect. >> i want to talk about that policy in a second. before we get to that, though, this idea, this is newt gingrich, now a mainstream republican view, this is a coordinated conspiracy being funded by someone. maybe george soros. this is newt gingrich. if laura ingram's estimate is right, the current caravan is at least a $21 million project paid for by someone who wants to undermine america. >> chris, can we put aside the political demagoguery and rhetoric for a moment? i spent hours and days with these women and children in south texas, and asked, why did you come here? and it's because the gangs were going to kill my son. or if gangs were going to kill

me. >> or the gangs were going to recruit my son or draft my son. >> correct. so these families are making the basic calculation that it's better to flee a burning building than to try to stay and fight the fire. and -- >> you're saying this is not a conspiracy being run by george soros? the reason i bring that up, that's insane. it's genuinely insane being embraced by the mainstream. >> a large segment of the american public might believe it. there's so much demagoguery and misinformation. >> i feel like you guys worked your way through this. family -- we know there were discussions about child separation. they didn't get far, but the reporting indicates there were. >> about five minutes, something we could not do. >> you were going through questions about deterrence, and you ended up -- things have to

change, the conditions have to change in central america. >> i'm not going to claim we fixed the problem. >> not saying you are. your understanding of the problem. >> we did things that were controversial. as you noted, we expanded family detentions. we took a lot of heat for that. when i came into office i was surprised to learn that 34,000 immigration beds, only 95 were devoted to families. we expanded that. we tack took a lot of heat for it. it had, along with the help that mexico provided us on their southern border, an effect that lasted about a year. and then the numbers started to creep up again toward the end of 2016. i think the election probably played a factor there. and so i come back to what i keep saying which is as long as the conditions in those three countries continue to persist, we're going to keep dealing with this because the push factors of illegal migration are always more powerful than any level of border security enforcement policy you can provide. >> and the sort of dangerous trap of deterrence in that context is that you have to compete with what they're running from to deter. >> correct. >> the thing they're running

from are generally life or death questions of whether their children will be killed. >> i would ask these kids in south texas, did you hear our messages about the dangers of the journey? >> yes. >> did you hear about our changes in enforcement policy? >> yes. >> did you hear at a daca was only available for those that have been here for five years? yes, but the gangs were going to kill me and my mother said you have to leave. the u.s. conference of catholic bishops once said, they're exactly right, if you try to padlock a burning building, you have to make a way out. >> jeh johnson, thank you. what is special about this photo and why did the white house not want you to see it? the nature of a virus is to change. move. mutate.

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process behind the decision about whether the fbi stays or goes and put a thumb on the scale to protect the revenue stream at your private hotel. now, that would be wildly corrupt, of course, not to mention insanely flagrant. there's a lot we don't know about what happened at that january meeting in this photo. we do know that emily murphy, shown here inside the oval office, sitting across the desk from the president of the united states, that she was asked by congress under oath if she ever discussed this issue with the president. her answer was not yes. so maybe there's more to the story we've yet to find out. still ahead, speaking of corruption, what we know about two newly reported secret hearings related to the mueller investigation. plus tonight's thing one, thing two starts next of. i'm alex trebek here to tell you

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tha thing one tonight, we've been talking tonight about midterm ads, but one we haven't mentioned yet. >> for the most part i'm an easy going guy, but not when mike brawn keeps lying about my record. i split with my own party to support funding for trump's border wall. the liberal left wants to chop defense spending. no way. i'm not into a fair fight. i'm about giving our troops the edge. i voted to extend the bush tax cuts and mike brawn, he shifts jobs to china. we've got to cut that out. i'm joe donnelly, i approve this message. >> so there's a whole lot going on there.

and a lot to work with for senator donnelly's opponent whose campaign quickly posted this remix. >> for the most part i'm an easy going guy, but not when mike brawn keeps lying about my record. we've got to cut that out. >> okay, that's not bad. slightly creepy. but there's much, much more and it's particularly "veep"y, that's thing two in 60 seconds.

there are times during the trump era when it feels like we're all living through an extremely long episode of "veep," the cry as i white house comedy on hbo. but joe donnelly takes this to a new level. is it possible he purposely remade a deny ad? >> our dignity, and our stature around the world. well, someone is chopping back. >> i'm jonah ryan.

>> vote for jonah ryan, he'll chop president meyer down to size. >> my name is jonah ryan, and i approve this message. >> they're practically identical down to the plaid shirts and bad chopping punning. we hope some day we'll get donnelly's bhand the scenes footage too. >> hello there, i'm jonah ryan, oh, mother bloo bleep piece of [ bleep ] you. oh. [ bleep ]. careful, careful, careful. >> i think the problem is that you lack upper body strength. why am i even chopping the [ bleep ] wood, it's the 21st century. we don't even use these things anymore. >> worked fine. >> and i grew up right here in the awesome state of new hampshire. today the chairman of the house freedom caucus,

today the chairman of the house freedom caucus, congressman mark meadows called on deputy attorney general rod rosenstein to resign, "based on additional information we've learned over the last week it is clear rod rosenstein should resign immediately." he wasn't shy about what set him off. rosenstein gave an interview to wall street journal after failing to show up in congress last week to answer questions. rosenstein did not fail to show up. plans for his appearance before

two house committees are ongoing. "the wall street journal" interview did happen. rosenstein said i committed i would ensure the russia investigation was appropriate and independent and reach the result, whatever it may be. meadows is turning up the heat. the mueller team has been busy, it's being reported. cnn reported hour-long sealed hearings in front of a judge, featuring a trial and appellate prosecutors. let's bring in msnbc justice analyst mark matthew miller, and eric holder, and msnbc legal analyst paul butler, a former federal prosecutor. paul, let me start with you about the activity we know that they have been up to, including keeping that grand jury impaneled, which is hearing testimony, and these hearings that are sealed and motions that are sealed. what is that? >> so the mueller team is interviewing witnesses, is meeting with the grand jury every friday. and it's doing a lot of secret stuff we don't know about. i think these meeting with paul manafort are very significant. he's met with them nine times

since he agreed to cooperate. so part of this is about obstruction of justice, mueller finally has an inside man at this meeting at the trump tower with the russian lawyer, a meeting that don jr. and sr. have repeatedly lied about. that shows consciousness of guilty to our prosecutor. more important, manafort also has information about collusion. we know that when manafort was running the campaign he was in constant contact with constantine -- and the other thing we know, chris, when the trump team learned the russians had damaging e-mails about hillary clinton, what did manafort do? he did not call the fbi. he tried to set up a meeting with the russians. what was he doing? what did don jr.? what did john jr. know? what did jared kushner know. mueller now knows the answers as well. >> matt what do you make of the escalation of house republicans on rosenstein? >> the republicans are obviously upset he did this interview, but they're also upset with members of their own party. if you look at the reports, rosenstein is going down to the hill to talk to the chairman of

the oversight committee. and i should say the democratic members, the ranking members as well. but the people that won't be in that meeting are mark meadows, jim jordan, other members of the freedom caucus. when you see him come out and do this interview, there are a couple things he was trying to do. he was trying to push back against this criticism from republicans on the hill. i think, two, he was trying to set up, you know, for after the election of what, you know, bob mueller is going to do to assure the american people he's been acting appropriately. and the result of these investigations are going to be appropriate when they're rolled out. and i also think he was trying to push back against a little bit of the criticism he got from the other side of the aisle. he took heat, i think, for this meeting with the president where he talked about the meeting

where he, you know, either did or did not say he wore a wire for coming off of air force one after meeting with the president, walking down with john kelly, i think there was an appearance of impropriety there. rod has always been someone who cares very much about his image, much more than most people know. that's why you saw him do that interview this week. >> paul, you're nodding your head. >> the president was able to control and manipulate the fbi when it did the sexual misconduct investigation against judge kavanaugh. the president would love to be able to use the fbi and the department of justice in the same way in the russian investigation. the problem is, the president is one of the subjects of that investigation, and rod rosenstein reminds the president of that. so rod rosenstein tells the president i am not going to fire robert mueller.

the president does not like hearing that, which is why after the midterms rod rosenstein is on his way out. >> yeah, that's the big question about this sort of timing of all this. don mcgahn left, and we know he left on bad terms with the president, reporting that may or may not have come from him, a line of defense stopping the president from doing that. there is this gathering dread, anticipation of the day after the election when mueller's no longer in this sort of window, who moves what and how? >> yeah, that's right. if you look at where he's going with the investigation, it's clear that some pieces of it are winding up, you know, mike flynn is going to be sentenced in december. a couple of prosecutors have gone back to their home offices. there are very clearly other issues to drop. roger stone seems significant, and whether there will be other americans charged on the conspiracy or collusion side of this equation.

so when you look at what happens after the election, i think with -- you know, with the white house counsel don mcgahn leaving, he was not a white house counsel who could push back against investigations, he was a cooperating witness, he spent 30 hours talking to the counsel. the president has a team around him who can both kind of push back against hill oversight. there will be aggressive hill oversight should democrats take back the house, and not just on the russian case, but on a host of scandals that have plagued the administration. and they're also getting ready to fight, if they have to, if mueller takes the nuclear option -- i don't think he will, but they have to be ready for that, and if this investigation ends with something like an impeachment referral to the house and you see a democratic house that doesn't just want to sweep it under the rug, but wants to take up what mueller reports to them and investigate it fully. >> i had forgotten. i was reasoning -- kenneth starr basically, the starr report was a recommendation of impeachment.

they gave it to congress and said go do your thing. >> with boxes and boxes of evidence. i listened to it too. >> and that investigation took six years. white water investigation tookes six years. this investigation is merely two years old, and it's far more consequential. this is the most important special investigation since watergate. >> all right, matthew miller and paul butler, thank you both. why the president is changing his tone a bit on the death of jamal khashoggi. why this story is not going away next.

president donald trump had

president donald trump had his strongest words to date on the apparent killing of "washington post" columnist jamal khashoggi after he walked into a saudi consulate in istanbul more than two weeks ago. >> do you believe jamal khashoggi is dead? >> it certainly looks that way to me. it's very sad. i think we'll be making a statement, a very strong statement. but we're waiting for results of about three different investigations. we should be able to get to the bottom fairly soon.

>> this on the same day the treasury secretary steven mnuchin tweeted quote, i have just met with donald trump and secretary pompeo. we have decided i will not be participating in the future investment initiative in saudi arabia. listening to the coverage of this story, an idea he confirmed himself when he told "the new york times," quote, this one has caught the imagination of the world, unfortunately, mr. trump said to reporters. it's not a positive, not a positive. secretary of state mike pompeo and president trump still insist on giving saudi arabia a few more days to get their story right. much like what happened on child separation, the president has realized this story is not going away and in fact has precipitated in international crisis, and at some point he is going to have to do something about it. here to help me understand what could happen next, former assistant deputy of defense, emily farkas and ambassador to qatar. ambassador, let me start with you. what do you make of the moves

that pompeo has made in the past few days? >> i think most of us were fairly surprised to see him participate in a photo op, and not just any photo op, but a smiling photo op when he went to riyadh. after what has happened, one would expect the saudis would come to us seeking our help. but he travelled to riyadh. and then he agreed to participate in a smiling, happy photo op that looked like we're really participating in a cover-up of what has happened here. >> evelyn, part of what is bizarre about this, you have pompeo look into looking into the investigation. a lot of people splaed this joke about o.j. finding the real killer. but there is nothing to investigate. very clearly, the saudis did this. it seems almost perverse, quasi stalinist to talk about the disappearance of the man and how

the saudis are going to investigate. >> right. chris, it seems to me like they're stalling for time. >> right. >> because they think that the public will let this go. there was somewhere, i don't recall which outlet it was now, but now jared kushner was saying, you know, this will disappear just like when the crown prince put his relatives, the other rich sheiks under house arrest and took their money or when he put the original female activists who wanted to get driving, the right for women to drive in saudi arabia, he put them in jail recently. all these things sort of blew over. yemen of course the atrocity there's kind of blew over. but this is different. i'm sure dana would agree with me. reading what's happening in washington, d.c. right now, the mood is very different. and congress is not going to let this one go. >> do you agree with that, dana? >> i hope evelyn is right, and i think the other incidents that she mentioned are an important

part of the picture here because the fact is the administration has failed to respond to sort of an escalation of behavior on the part of the crown prans of saudi arabia. he sidelined the original crown prince who was one of our greatest partners in the fight against terrorism. well didn't say a thing. fighting yemen, killing a school bus full of children, we didn't say a thing. blockading one of our partners that host our air base, didn't say a thing. kidnapped the minister of lebanon, dense say a thing. maybe we said some things behind the scenes but we didn't message anything publicly that we had a problem with this behavior. and it's not like we can wave a magic wand and dictate what happens inside other country. but we certainly have the right and expectation to set some standards for ourselves about who we're going to associate with. >> well, the ambassador makes a point the path to this was paved with lots of green lights. >> yes. >> or lots of sort of go aheads from the white house. and now the question becomes,

evelyn, everyone seems backed into a corner here, like they are workshoping their cover story in public. this is "the new york times." "saudi arabia weighs blaming intelligence officer for khashoggi killing clothe. it's all like the guy they're going to win it is senior enough. no one is going to accept that. >> right. and he is also of african origin, chris. that's another component of it. he is an easy one for them to pick on if you know something about their culture. look, i think the other problem, and you kind of highlighted this when you asked about the investigation is that i think our government knows what happened. >> yes. >> the turks clearly, you know, have been pushing us. and every time it looked like our administration, that the president wasn't going to actually come clean and say that he was dead and he had been murdered by the saudis, the turks release a little bit more information, because they're sitting here like what's going on? we know and we told you guys. so i highly suspect that our intelligence agencies know and the president knows. and again, as i said before,

they're just stalling for time. >> ambassador, you left your post. you were ambassador, if i'm not mistaken from 2014 to 2017. >> correct. >> so you spanned the two militia. you left i think with some frustration in the trump administration. and one has to note there is no ambassador to the saudi kingdom, and there is no ambassador to turkey, if i'm not mistaken right now. how much does that matter in these circumstances? >> it matters a lot. you know, the administration isn't wrong that the personal matters a lot in these instances, and i don't blame them for making the personal relationships one of their focuses, but to totally neglect all the other stuff that happens in a relationship, and all of the other information that an ambassador gets because of his or her access, it's just -- frankly, it's a dereliction of duty. we're pretty far into an administration to not even have nominees to some of these places. so, yeah, they're playing with a

-- they're using a tool box that's empty for the most part. >> is mbs not surviving this a possibility? and i don't mean that in ooh literal since. evelyn, like him being removed? >> i think it's a -- well, it's a possibility. i don't know how much of a probability it is because obviously he's the favorite son of the king, and it will be up to the king notionally to decide to push him aye aye side. >> right. >> but he's got a lot of rivals. he's got a lot of enemies, all the people he put under house arrest in the ritz are carlton and his relatives. >> yeah. there is a lot of motive. >> and a lot of people who were uncomfortable with putting him in the line of succession and giving him all the power. >> right. >> there were a lot of people, including khashoggi himself who were saying that he was a reckless young man who was inexperienced and shouldn't be in that position. >> yeah. i just don't know -- the thought that a year from now everybody

is he did chop that guy up. it's really who fight. evelyn farkas -- >> and they're islamic. they're supposed to be the keepers of the holy cities. >> evelyn farkas and dana shell smith, thank you. that is "all in" for this evening. "the rachel maddow show" starts right now. >> tonight we have a new talking point for the midterm campaign at a rally in mont monlt. donald trump road tested the phrase democrats produce mobs republicans produce jobs. he also treated his audience to a thorough review of his 2016 victory. back at the white house, john kelly and john bolton got into a profane shouting match over immigration. one of the men left and didn't come back. the president admits today it certainly looks like jamal khashoggi is dead, as u.s. intelligence agencies believe it is inconceivable that the crown prince had no connection to his death. and the powerful words of steve schmidt who squarely took on the president earlier today and again sounded the alarm about what we're seeing as "the 11th hour" gets underway on a sd