members of team trump knew he was talking with the russians about helping the campaign. he says at one point he was told by a campaign official, great work. >> and pierre thomas with us live tonight from washington. and pierre, what do paul manafort and rick gates face if they convicted? >> reporter: david, they could face up to 20 years in prison. manafort was released on a $10 million unsecured bond and was placed under house arrest. he is expected back in court on thursday, david. >> pierre thomas leading us off on this monday night. pierre, thank you. shortly after the indictment of paul manafort and his associate, president trump tweeting, there is no collusion. but that was before news of a third man, another trump adviser, and this time, an arrest months ago, an indictment. and a guilty plea kept secret. and now comes word that he's been cooperating with the fbi for yeweeks. here's abc's chief investigative correspondent brian ross tonight. >> reporter: it is the biggest break in the case yet. the strongest evidence yet of possible collusion, with this details of

he appears to be on team trump. is president trump going to win this one. >> >>> and jeanne moos on trump's obsession with his iq. and he does it with dr. scholl's. only dr. scholl's has massaging gel insoles that provide all-day comfort to keep him feeling more energized. dr. scholl's. born to move. they put their shoulders to it. broad backs and hard will. squaring off against whatever comes next. they defied the law of gravity and went faster and farther than any one of them had ever imagined. they learned what it takes to power a dream. someone before them had discovered america, but they discovered what it means to be an american. and the thing about discovery, it has a beginning but no end. the next era belongs to those who discover again, what it means to be an american. those who have the resourcefulness, the ingenuity and the grit to ensure the next energy to power our dreams will be american energy. this one's below market price and has bluetooth. same here, but this one has leather seats! use the cars.com

in march, the fbi confirmed it was investigating whether team trump and the russians worked together. >> what we're talking about h hh is a hostile foreign power, the kremlin, trying to disrupt our democracy. the fact that we now have evidence that that influence was solisitted by a campaign is very serious. >> reporter: none of the charges against manafort or gates announced today show evidence of collusion with russia, but the plea deal with 30-year-old george papadopoulos could be the most problematic development for the president, seen here in this photo, he literally had a seat at the table during the campaign. >> there's every reason to believe that he is now cooperating with the investigators and giving them information readily, that they would not have had as easily. >> reporter: papadopoulos was arrested for lying to the fbi about his contacts with people allegedly linked to the kremli one of them saying the russians had dirt on hillary clinton in the forms of thousands of e-mails. the next day donald trump gave his first foreign policy speech with an emphasis on russia. >> i

the three congressional investigations into possible collusion mean team trump and russia continue as does special counsel robert mueller's work, at least for now. >> there's no intention or plan to make any changes in regards to special counsel. >> i'm an average american, watching today's developments. >> yeah pch. >> why does it matter for me at all? >> because it makes the u.s. government appear like a >> it's clear that when it comes to the russia investigation, this is the beginning, not the end. ♪ ♪ >>> coming up next here on "nightline," we switch gears entirely. the always glamourous wheel of fortune hostess, vanna white, takes us inside her home and her work closets. w they weren't perfect, but, ugh. oh well, all hope is lost! oh thanks! clearly my whitening toothpaste is not cutting it. time for whitestrips. crest glamorous white whitestrips are the only ada-accepted whitening strips proven to be safe and effective. they work below the enamel surface to whiten 25x better than a leading whitening toothpaste. hey, nice smile! thanks! i crushed the tissue test! yeah you di

election so was the collusion between team trump and moscow. kenya's president who wins last week's repeat election by a landslide electoral commission says the vote was free and fair despite street violence and an opposition boycott will bring you the latest from nairobi. i'm phil gale welcome to the program as the spanish ration of catalonia begins its first week on the direct rule from madrid the country's top prosecutor has called for charges including rebellion to be brought against the latest who last week voted for independence from spain among the accused his catalonia president. whom a trade has removed from office spanish media reporting that he and other full members of his companies are now in brussels. correspondent. pants regatta joins us from brussels welcome back spanish media. in brussels what are you hearing . the manhunt for collins push him on the sect president is still on there's no official confirmation hearing process that he has arrived in this city or that he is on the road to the city the cut alon representation says

trump or against team trump or part of the resistance and the reason this becomes so critical is imagine next year republicans pick up a couple senate seats which is entirely plausible, then obamacare will be repealed because it was one vote short last time and not just votes but messages. if you go the other way and democrats do well you could see the impeachment of donald trump. the stakes are big and ultimately will be decided by people i call reluctant trump supporters, people that don't like the president, disapprove of him, they like a lot of his policies and most important of all as much as they dislike him -- heather: or dislike congress even more and now there is a huge discrepancy between the white house and congress and what is or is not getting done and who is to blame, democrats, republicans, resisting, what is the problem and that will be reflected in local races as well. >> absolutely. what you saw with donald trump acting on healthcare and taking executive action forcing congress to work is reflecting his base. they wanted somebody to force republicans to honor their prom

, but questions are raised about teams and trump hotels. here's the latest on that, senior contributor of the "washington post," good evening, sir, welcome to the program. >> thank you. >> you have new reporting on sports teams and trump hotels. what can you tell us? >> we went back to look to see whether sports teams staying in donald trump hotels in chicago and in soho before the election, before he got in the campaign, were still his clients. had a third of the nba staying in new york, and toe tap of 17 teams staying within one place or the otherment we found 16 of the 17 teams have now quit, stop stayed with president trump since he got in the presidential race. >> interesting. how much money was the nba spending in trump properties. >> well, each team, each night, they came to stay a couple nights to play, knicks, nets, brooklyn, each night they are there is $20,000 in rooms, food, things like that, ballroom rentals for film sessions, but it's not just that and money teams give trump directly, but huge advertisements, tweeting about it

you have new report ogennen on trump teams and trump hotels. >> we looked at whether trump teams before the election or before he got into the campaign were still his clients. he used to have more than a third of the nba staying at his trump soho hotel in new york. we've found that 16 of those 17 teams have now quit, they've stopped spending money to stay at trump's places. >> interesting. >> each night they're there it's $20,000 in rooms, food, things like that, ballroom rentals for film sessions. it's not just that, not just the money the teams give directly, they tweet about it, post instagram about it. they show what cool people are there, nba players on the road. so they're walking ads for the trump hotel. so not only does he lose the money directly but also that social buzz. >> and are those properties seeing strong business since president trump took office? >> here's what's interesting, we're seeing a dynamic where the office is pulling it -- m mar-a-lago down in palm beach and the trump hotel here in decemb d.c., both those places that pruks a pruksimity to power is really ther

and there is some kind of response by the trump team. and we're going to have to find out what that response was to see if there is collusion. >> well, it's clearly his role in the campaign that interests them. you would certainly think that the prosecutors are going to use these charges against manafort and gates that are very serious and could carry sentences of many years in prison to try to get their cooperation. you'd also assume, chris, that the prosecutors already tried to get their cooperation, just like the deal they cut with papadopoulos. whether that's going to happen or whether they're going tough it out, we just don't know yet. >> within guy is facing huge numbers and one guy is facing zero to six months. within guy is cooperating. thank you so much. you see through these things so well. >> you bet. >> nbc news justice correspondent pete williams. i'm joined by schmidt, and jennifer rogers. in order, michael first. when you read through the tea leaves, not the tea leaves, the evidence, you're getting a sense that the russian

trump and jerome himself whose pa rt team trump and jerome himself whose part of it that is not yet appointed. were false and got sta nley appointed. were false and got stanley fisher, the deputy head, stepping down. a potential game changer in the terms of the way things are done. it is clear that walsh is not necessarily trump's favourite because he is more likely to be hawkish, that means he would like to raise rates earlier whereas trump likes or like approach keeping the economy moving along. there's been a spike in us car sales in september, the highest for 12 years, because of hurricane damage. this is a breath of life for the car industry, it was clearly worrying because people keep cars so much longer than hitherto. a lot of people are now waiting to buy electric cars. this is obviously a significant positive thing for the car industry and the conviction industry because however damaging it is from a people point of view for the economy it will mean a lot of money. james bevan, you'll be back to discuss the papers at the end of the programme. we are receiving your tweets ab

we learn more about the trump adviser front and center in robert mueller's russia probe, team trump is kicking the man candidate trump once praised to the curb. >> i never heard of papadopoulos. he never showed up at trump tower and never had any interaction with the campaign leaders. >> george was such a low level volunteer, i don't recall having much interaction with him throughout the campaign. >> steve bannon is whispering in the president's ear about ways to set fire to mueller's investigation. one thing trump lawyers have said is off the table. >> there is no conversation regarding firing robert mueller. >> and what this interview with white house chief of staff john kelly says about his relationship with the president. >> the lack of an ability to compromise led to the civil war. and men and women of good faith on both sides made their stand where their conscious had to make their stand. >> the facade of the white house is always beautiful. rain, sleete or shine. team trump's efforts to make like all is normal inside the white house right now is just that. it is a facade. despit

it's definitely the line that's been coming from team trump for quite a while. >> the russia story is a total fabrication. >> did any adviser or anybody in the trump campaign have any contact with the russians who were trying to meddle in the election? >> of course not. >> so there has been absolutely no collusion. it's been stated that they have no collusion. >> are there any ties between mr. trump, you or your campaign and putin and his regime? >> no, there are not. it's absurd. >> there was no collusion between us and russia. >> did anyone involved in the trump campaign have any contact with russians trying to meddle with the election? >> absolutely not. >> in the meantime, no collusion, no obstruction. >> so current and former members of team trump have long agreed there's nothing to see here and to that point they may be right. it's entirely possible that none of what they or we or anyone else has learned so far will add up to the campaign and russia working together to get donald trump in the white house or to him and anyone else object strubting justice. keeping them honest, th

trump. president trump has promised to, in his words, take care of iran. in a television interview, mr trump again criticised the agreement, negotiated by his predecessor, president obama, which lifted sanctions on the iran in return for restrictions on its nuclear activities. i believe they're funding north korea. i believe they're trading with north korea. i believe they're doing things with north korea that is totally inappropriate that doesn't pertain to the deal. but in my opinion it does because it's called the spirit of the deal. and you will see what i will be doing in the not too distant future. but iran is a bad player, and they will be taken care of as a bad player. the man arrested after a car crash outside london's natural history museum yesterday has been released by police, but remains under investigation. the 47—year—old was one of 11 people hurt when his toyota prius mounted the pavement and hit pedestrians. police said the incident was a traffic accident and not terrori

. —— team trump. president trump has promised to, in his words, "take care" of iran. in a television interview, mr trump again criticised the agreement, negotiated by his predecessor, president obama, which lifted sanctions on the iranians in return for the country restricting their nuclear activities. i believe they're funding north korea. trading with north korea. i believe they're doing things with north korea that is totally inappropriate that doesn't pertain to the deal. but in my opinion it does because it's called the spirit of the deal. and you will see what i will be doing in the not too distant future. but iran is a bad player, and they will be taken care of as a bad player. the snp leader nicola sturgeon says she won't think about the timescale for another scottish independence referendum until the brexit deal becomes clear. she had previously talked about holding a second vote as early next autumn. and, as the party gathers in glasgow for its annual conference, some believe its focus shoul

so was there collusion between team trump and moscow? also on the show, looking for legal advice in brussels, a belgian lawyer confirms that he has taken on cat lona's sacked president as a client, this has sannish prosecutors file charges of rebellion against catalan leaders and re-elected but at what cost, kenya's president ken yatta wins 98% in a repeat poll, he says his victory is from the people despite boycott and protests. it's good to have you with us. we begin tonight in the u.s. capitol of washington. donald trump's former campaign chief paul manafort and his associate rick gates are under house arrest after indictment in the russia investigation. both men pleaded not guilty to charges of conspiracy and money laundering today. it was also revealed today that another former trump visor, george papandreou has pled guilty about lying to agents about lying about officials. donald trump denies any conclusion between his campaign team and moscow took place. >> the noos everyone is tightening after five probes of alleged collusion bet

team and russia. the most significant development, george papadopoulos has pleaded guilty to lying to the fbi about his russia

and by the way, i don't think that the trump team has earned the benefit of the doubt when it comes to these matters because their stories have changed repeatedly. so i think there is sort of warranted suspicion whenel sessions takes a tack like that. >> all right. ken, i call on you again as an splarn, don't make me take this to the lawyers in the next segment. what is the difference between or the concert between a hearing like the one we saw today, the concurrent hearings going on on the house side, and something like the mueller, which seems to be the overarching mueller investigation? >> well, the hearing today was technically an oversight hearing. the senate judiciary committee has oversight of the justice department with jeff session as attorney general is the head of. so conceivablyel they could be asking about anything. they can be asking -- they did ask about other subjects, including the enforcement of -- or the protection -- democrats asked about protection for the lgbt community and whether sessions was doing anything to sort of dial back the protections and the drug enfor

because there's a school of thought in the trump team that says you want to show as much cooperation as possible with the investigation. you want to get this over with as fast as you can and signal that you have nothing to hide among other things. at least the line coming from the trump camp of course is he has nothing to hide, he hasn't done anything wrong. these indications of executive privilege clearly do suggest to many observes there are hiding something. i saw the aclu tweeted today, echoes of watergate. and the more that trump officials take this line, the more there's going to be suspicion. and by the way, i don't think the trump team has earned the benefit of the doubt when it comes to these matters because their stories have changed repeatedly. so i think there's a warranted suspicion when sessions takes attack like that. >> ken, i call on you again as an explainer. what's the difference between or the concert between a hearing like the one we saw today, the concurrent hearings going on on the house side and something like the mueller, what seems to be the overarching muel

ben carson before switching to the trump team. jake, source,s tell us that i had that the house and senate intelligence committees had tried to set up a meeting with george papadopoulos, but they were unsuccessful and unable to interview them as part of their own russia investigations and other capitol hill news, jake. i talk to the senate judiciary committee chairman chuck grassley saying the president should not interfere with bob mueller's work in any way saying he should let the special counsel do his job. >> thanks very much. he served has chief of staff in a white house that faced its own set of scandals so what advise might he have for president trump and his team? we'll talk to leon panetta next. a medicare supplement insurance plan whenever you want. no enrollment window. no waiting to apply. that means now may be a great time to shop for an aarp medicare supplement insurance plan, insured by unitedhealthcare insurance company. medicare doesn't cover everything. and like all standardized medicare supplement insurance plan

now russian lawyer course the frenzy early this year when it was revealed that she met team trump during the u.s. election campaign tell us from the skies meeting with donald trump jr was seen by some as clear proof of russian meddling and collusion donald trump think he was about to get help from a russian lawyer with ties to the kremlin we all know her name now on television. natalia vessel needs sky this is looking more and more like treason all these strange behavior from the president it's all explained well she is now back in the media or i after her memo with talking points for that meeting was released and it turns out it wasn't about giving trump on his rival hillary clinton has previously claimed according to her notes entirely it was getting ready to discuss the sanctions that were imposed by the u.s. on a number of russian officials they were being punished for the death of. he was in order to at a moscow north investigating corruption she says she want to prove that those sanctions were politically motivated. the thing is to pull up with something just to make it clear i was

this is what they said about paul manafort who spent five months on team trump, including three as campaign chairman. >> obviously, there's this discussion of paul manafort who played an i have limited role for a limited amount of time. john, hold on. can you stop interrupting other people? jonathan, somebody's asking a question. it's not your press briefing. >> reporter: the president himself is making the case that the real subject of investigation should be hillary clinton. the president tweeting sunday there is so much guilt by democrats, clinton, and now the facts are pouring out. do something! and what will the president do if mueller continues to next on his associates and not clinton's? is he going to rule out once and for all firing robert mueller? >> the president said last week, i believe it was last week, and i've said several times before, there's no intention or plan to make any changes in regards to the special counsel. >> reporter: the white house was also asked whether or not the president would consider issuing pardons for paul manafort or rick gates. the answer was intere

team and trump himself engage in this periodic gaslighting of the american public. they keep on engaging in these dog-and-pony shows designed to distract us from what's going on. i think that's dangerous because now that we're getting real evidence that there are real charges that will be brought in the collusion scandal, then the trump campaign is saying no, no, no, it's clinton who engaged in collusion. that's absolutely ludicrous. we're alsoali at a point that t the american public only wants to support who maintains their point of view. to allow bob mueller to do his work. >> jesse, from what you've learned and from different sources you've been talking to around what could happen on monday, who are some of the more likely people? are they the manaforts, the flynns or potentially somebody that isn't on the radar, like a roger stone for that matter? >> those are the obvious names. those are all the people being speculated on. what mueller is going to do is work his way up. this is the way a good white collar investigation needs to proceed, you want to indict lowe

team. when you put all of those

based on everything that we've heard about robert mueller's team, it's like li there are more charges coming against paul manafort. >> all right. pete williams tonight. thank you. >>> president trump swiftly reacted to the indictments on social media and once again claimed there was no collusion with russia. as the white house sought to distance him from his former campaign advisers. let's get more from our chief white house correspondent hallie jackson. >> reporter: trick-or-treat is the only question president trump's answering tonight. the white house strategy now, distance and deflect. president trump tweeting today, sorry, but this is years ago, before paul manafort was part of the trump campaign. but why aren't crooked hillary and the dems the focus? >> today's announcement has nothing to do with the president, has nothing to do with the president's campaign or campaign activity. >> reporter: sanders is correct that paul manafort's indictment never explicitly mentions the trump campaign, but it does accuse him and rick gates of misleading the government, a felony, even after the

but i can see why team trump was happy with this morning's news.# them colluding with russia. and then this happened. >> this is cnn breaking news. >> his former foreign policy advise tore the trump campaign has pleaded guilty to lying to fbi officials. the complaint says georgeÑi papadopoulos lied about his contacts with foreign nationals who had close connections to the russian government. >> trevor: it is still hall wean, bitches. (applause) just two hours, two hours after the manafort story broke we find out that one of trump'sl advises george papadopoulos was trying to connect the trump cam pain with russian government officials who had dirt on hillary. so now the story is back to trump-russia collusion, yeah. you know what would be hilarious is if this news broke as trump was popping the champagne about the manafort thing. he was like yeah, the mueller indictment has nothing to do with me. whooo! mike pence, come over here, let's get them titties wet. whooo. yeah, yeah. whooo. wait, wait, wait, another indictment? wait, wait, stop, stop, no, champagne, no, stop, this is

trump has already done it twice but now a third time in doubt any of the trying to take take a look at what trends and reasons to break the deal could be so donald trump's got a problem with what's known as iran's nuclear deal ok his not a fan of iran in the first place he's confident it's still a nest for terrorists but is that a good enough reason to basically throw the compromise agreement that required so much diplomatic effort to the floor i mean when it comes to sticking to the deal terms the world agrees to iran is behaving so why the assumption the deals in jeopardy because of washington the house foreign affairs committee chairman explains the tehran regime clearly sees itself as a movement one that uses ideology and violence to destabilize its neighbors. to threaten others just for the record that was an american official talking about someone else promoting ideology and views using violence in other countries to get what they want isn't that a us thing like the golden rule of their foreign policy that we've seen in action so many times we have to stand united with our all

team to russia, trump tweeted, quote, "do something." incidentally, "do something" is what it says any time trump puts on his fitbit. [ laughter and applause ] "tweet? should i tweet? [ laughter ] still zero." a wisconsin man was recently locked inside a convenience store's beer cooler for several hours. luckily he had access to plenty of water. [ cheers and applause ] and finally, united airlines launched the longest ever flight by a u.s. airline on friday. a 17-hour and 55-minute trip from los angeles to singapore. narrowly beating out spirit airlines 17-hour flight from new york to philly. [ laughter and applause ] ladies and gentlemen, we have a great show for you tonight! she is a fashion icon and long-time host of lifetime's "project runway," heidi klum is back tonight. [ cheers and applause ] he's been here a bunch, it's always a pleasure to see him. senator bernie sanders! [ cheers and applause ] back on our show. and music from imagine dragons. it's going to be something to see, i promise. [ cheers and applause ] so, you're here

in that indictment, there's no mention of trump, team trump, candidate trump, president trump. none of that. which may serve robert mueller in that he will say or now allow the white house to say this is a political witch hunt, which the president has said from the beginning. >> yeah, you may say to yourself, there's not a lot of donald trump there. papadopoulos doing some collusion freelancing on his own. yeah, maybe he communicated back and forth. but indeed, it may go that far. or you can say this is a deliberate guy, mueller and the charges are deliberate. they're pretty compelling at this stage of the game and papadopoulos has signed off on the charges. he agreed to them. maybe this is a sign of a mueller that has a lot more in store. >> shepard: john bussey, thank you. our next guest says robert mueller appears to go for the low-hanging fruit with the charges against paul manafort and other former campaign staffers. she says special prosecutor mueller could try to build his case by forcing these defendants to actually cooperate. more to come in that conversation is next.

trump. also this hour — storm nate has weakened to a tropical depression after bringing strong winds, heavy rain and some flooding to the south—eastern united states. it made landfall as a hurricane twice, in louisiana and mississippi. the storm system killed at least 25 people in nicaragua, costa rica and honduras. turkey says it will stop issuing all non—immigrant visas to us citizens. the announcement came after the us embassy in turkey imposed a similar measure. last week a worker at the us consulate in istanbul was detained on suspicion of links to people involved in last year's failed coup. authorities in china say they've punished more than 1.3 million low—level communist party bureaucrats over the last five years as part of the country's crackdown on corruption. prominent party officials such as top politician bo xilai are among those to have been convicted as part of the campaign. reports from bangladesh say a boat packed with rohingya refugees, predominantly children, fleei

however it's the line that's been coming from team trump for quite a while. >> the russia story is a total t fabrication. >> did anybody in the russian campaign have anybody that was involved in the investigation? >> of course no. >> are there any ties between mr. trump, you, the campaign and putin and the regime? >> no there is not. >> there's no collusion between us and russia. >> did anyone involved in the trump campaign have any contact with russians trying to meddle with the collection. >> absolutely not. >> in the meantime, no collusion, no obstruction. >> so according to former trump members there's nothing to see here, and they may be right, it's nothing that we or anyone else have learned so far as to the president of russia working together to put donald trump into the white house or to 00 obstructing justice. keep in mind, special counsel muller has not said that nor has the intelligence committee. and that's from the republican ko chair. >> the committee continues to look into all evidence to see if there was any and/or collusion. i'm not going to even discuss initial fin

trump and moscow. and kenya's president two who are kenyatta i wince last week said a repeat of action by a landslide the electoral commission says the vote was free and fair as despite street violence on the opposition boycott we'll bring you the latest from my home. i'm phil gayle welcome to the program the spanish region of catalonia begins its first week on to direct rule from spain central government the country's top prosecutor house calls the charges including rebellion to be brought against cats and i'm leaders who voted for independence last week amongst those facing charges that the baby regions for the president colors pushed a male who's been removed from office spanish media reporting that he and other former members of his cabinet said in brussels. d.w. correspondents. bad regatta joins us from brussels welcome bet so spanish media cyclists push them all into brussels what are you hearing of the manhunt for carlos push him on the sec president is still on there's no official confirmation

and president trump and his team, here's the line today. collusion is not illegal. the word from one of the president's attorneys, jay sekulow. there is no crime of collusion. technically he is not wrong. what do you say to that? >> these are the same people that said there was no interference and the same people that then said there was no collusion. so they were wrong on both those instances. and we'll see where this goes. look, i've said it to you on your program before, bob mueller is not going to be intimidated and not going to be misdirected and not going to be delayed or deceived or in any way distracted by the president's tweets. he's coming at this as the consummate professional that he is. >> your committee is also meeting with carter pain this week. he is another foreign policy adviser to the trump campaign and actually was on the same foreign policy advisory committee that papadopolous was on and he was also, of course, under scrutiny with his trips in connections to russia. here is what he had to say about yesterday's developme

but here's the worry i think team trump should have is why. it could be uneven handling of the storms, he did great in houston, but not puerto rico. it could be hurting the feelings of a gold star will ddow. but it could be the republicans every time they don't pass health care. i think going after that, i don't think the tax bill is going to help him. they think it is. trump is going to go hard at social issues. i think the nfl fight helped him, screaming about confederate statues helped him. >> we're talking about september and october. if that nfl issue was going to work it would work now. the opioid crisis address maybe it changes it. i was here a year ago, in this studio and across new york. i think i sat with some of you all and the they said trump is going to lose trump's going to get killed. the polls were wrong. i think there's still some of that in this polling. but i agree with this, if this is a tax plan that is typical for d.c., trump will lose more. because my wife said is he going to allow the >>> high approval among 83% of repu

was fired over the summer and also was with the trump transition team and the trump inauguration team so this cuts very close, although the charges themselves may be reeled to manafort's business dealings and not anything to do with the campaign. very close to the president. >> no question about that. remember, if we go back to the timing last year during the campaign manafort left the campaign just days after several of these business dealings were revealed including payments that he may have gotten from the ukraine. >> reporter: yes, and at the time, i was told by senior officials on the campaign that was very much part of the reason that manafort was fired, not the only reason but a big part of why manafort was fired because of that cloud. but, george, this is a bigs is s it would not necessarily have anything to do or wouldn't in their view have anything to do with the trump campaign or with the president himself. >> that's clearly what they would say but, you know, one of the things we've learned with all of these investigation, all these special counsel investigations they start

maybe the obama cia to target team trump. you got questions whether obama the politician knew as a result of his running the dnc and political organization and these payments and, of course, what obama the president knew. either way, the questions need to be answered. steve: you want to know what did now former president barack obama know about the dossier and all this stuff, right? >> yes. i think it's a question we need answered because if the dossier, which is a political document created to destroy president trump or the candidate trump was used by his fbi and -- fbi and cia, did they know that this was nothing but a political attack on trump? and they shouldn't really have anything to do with it? steve: yeah, tom, it sounds like the dossier was used to justify unmasking a number of names. >> well, we don't know what it was justified to do. it might have been justified -- it might have been justified to use the cia, the fbi, nsa to spy on team trump. that's the most disconcerning thing. did they use this to go after team

if i could get him to stop tweeting -- i'm not team trump tweet. but i will say that in return, the backlash he faces is not fair either. so while i don't like the tweets, i don't like the mainstream media's reaction to said tweets. >> i would grade the president very, very high. i think he's doing a tremendous job and all fronts. i think he's been successful in insuring we crush all the anti-american forces out there rooting for his failure, seeking to diminish america to the fullest extent that they can. i'm pleased we have america' first on outsidebar time in the culture war president. that's what donald trump is doing. lou: these players who are so misguidedly, they are saying outright they are taking on president trump rather than raising their fists in a black panther salute or refusing to stand up during anthem. this is extraordinary. the nfl is paying a big, big price. >> i think what the nfl players don't realize is whatever message they were trying to convey has been lost. now it's been turned into a muddied concept of we don't like the m

why did donald trump's secret team contact assange in. >> according to the team with two sources of not in the congressional investigation, alexander nicks, the trump campaign paid millions of dollars to for work that it conducted during the election system, nicks himself said that he reached out to assange in hope that's cambridge analytica would be able to help assange public and distribute 30,000 e-mails that have reportedly been deleted from the private server she used while she was secretary of state. those were something of a great white whale for republicans during the election. all sorts of republicans were desperate to find them. there was a host of theories as to what could be in them. there were lots of efforts to track them down. those efforts were going on in the trump campaign to the the spent the alexander nicks, the ceo of a data firm, specifically offered to help assange distribute those e-mails. >> after you went to press, they are not denying the core of your report. >> exactly. that statement i thought was quite telling. what it says is, it is an effort by the trump

. >>> when we come back, did vladimir putin get more than he bargained for with team trump, or is it mission accomplished to have simply sown this much chaos and confusion? this guy is upping his game by listening to an audiobook on audible. and this guy is just trying to get through the day. this guy feels like he can take on anything. this guy isn't sure he can take it anymore. unwavering self-confidence. stuck in a 4-door sedan of sadness. upgrade your commute. ride with audible. dial star star audible on your smartphone to start listening today. >>> is the president saying that special counsel mueller should be investigating hillary clinton and the democrats, and is he going to rule out once and for all firing robert mueller. >> i'll address the second question first. the president said last week, i believe it was last week, and i've says several times before, there's no intention or plan to make any changes in regards to special counsel. >> a carefully worded statement from sarah huckabee sanders who won't rule out that the president could fire robert mueller. as peter baker and

for them the trump team is a target and determining what the vulnerability is. in this case it's easy. as dana was saying, the vulnerability is dirt on hillary clinton, whether it's approach to donald jr. or another advisor. they're going to say why don't you meet with, as we know, an attorney who spoke with don junior and then at the back end of this, there's a simple end of the story going to the departure of mike flynn to the administration. there's a cost to that kind of cooperation with the russians. we'll give you stuff but we want the relief of sanctions we know mike flynn left because of a a conversation with the russian ambassador potentially about relief of sanctions. so this is intelligence 101. >> papadopoulos is pleading guilty to making a false statement to the fbi. we saw these documents, read them all today. he's cooperating after pleading guilty and he's being described as a proactive cooperator. you're a former u.s. attorney explain what that means, a proactive cooperator. >> the only thing it can mean to me, especially given the timing here, h

launched into the potential collusion between the trump team and russia. despite all of this, the president insisting that his party stands together, and he tweeted the meeting with republican senators yesterday outside of flake and corker, was a love fest with standing ovations and great ideas for usa. that was mid week. because he met with republicans on tuesday. after narrowly pushing through a new budget on thursday, we have house republicans racing to pass a new tax plan. they want to do it before thanksgiving. but will more gop defections actually derail the trump pledge to cut taxes? joining me now, former white house chief of staff and nbc political analyst andy card. it's great to have you here. >> good to be with you. >> just your reaction to knowing where the mueller team has landed so far with monday being this critical day of revealing some of their first work. >> well, if the stories are accurate that there will be indictments on monday and evidently the story are accurate, i just don't know who is nobody does, i would recommend that people i