Show: THE BEAT WITH ARI MELBER Date: July 24, 2018 Guest: Ralph Peters; Mark Warner; Howard Dean; Christina Greer
KATY TUR, MSNBC HOST: Some are born great and others have greatness yanking them around. So Twiggy, we send you into retirement with our gratitude and admiration. Of all the nut jobs out there, Georgia was truly the nuttiest.
That is all for tonight. We will be back tomorrow with more MTP DAILY.
THE BEAT WITH ARI MELBER starts right now.
Ari, you got beat out by this to be the nuttiest person on television.
ARI MELBER, MSNBC HOST: Well, I have a question for you.
TUR: I bet you do.
MELBER: What is going on over there?
TUR: What? Twiggy is retiring. It`s a big deal. She was advocating for water safety, always wear a life vest.
MELBER: How long have you been interested in this particular story?
TUR: Since I saw anchorman.
MELBER: And that`s a long time.
TUR: How many years ago was that, now? God, a little while.
MELBER: It`s a movie that is near and dear to many an anchor person`s heart.
TUR: I`m Katy Tur --
MELBER: I can`t play this game with you, Katy.
TUR: Stay classy, Ari Melber.
MELBER: I can hear people groaning in the background of either your set, or perhaps across America, and that`s my fault.
But thank you for that news report on Twiggy and stay classy, Katy Tur.
OK. Today, Donald Trump conceded the Russians are hacking and targets our next elections, which might sound like a significant statement. Let`s be clear, off the top it is not kind of earnest admission. The President is trolling and distracting and using that punitive admission to falsely assert that Putin wants to help Democrats.
So let`s begin tonight instead with the facts of what`s really happening, not this gambit from a President facing all kinds of legal pressure. Over in the real world, off twitter, Donald Trump is using the security clearance process to retaliate against intel leaders who criticized him. He is inviting Putin to D.C. without telling his own intel chiefs. And he is letting Putin`s requests to interrogate a former U.S. ambassador dangle out there and former Obama official at the White House today over the issue.
So while Trump embraces Putin and throws shade at Democrats, new reports share America contributes separately. Russian hackers targeting control systems for U.S. electric utilities. Homeland security now saying Russia is going after our grid.
All of this is a big deal. All of this is the real news that Trump apparently is not as interested in tweeting about. The first report from Washington we are going to show you tonight is significant. It is the U.S. House oversight committee that continues on with what is kind of grinding, sometimes, behind the scenes work, overseeing election security.
And there`s a congressman on this committee, Democrat Stephen Lynch, reacting to what many national security experts have been calling out, that the U.S. is increasingly vulnerable, heading into the next election, with these new attacks exposed, and even apart from Donald Trump`s own role. What`s interesting about what we are about to show you is a confrontation of the argument, pressing the argument that Republicans on the hill, who know better, continue to rally around Trump`s Putin policy.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. STEPHEN LYNCH (D), MASSACHUSETTS: The Republican effort has been to rally around the President, even when he is wrong, even when he puts down publicly our intelligence agencies, even when he disses us and sides with Putin. Are you kidding me? Are you kidding me? This is where we`re at now? This is a disgrace. A disgrace. That was a national embarrassment in Helsinki. Do you stand for democracy or will you stand with that gangster in Moscow?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MELBER: That gangster in Moscow. This is a question not only for the White House but for anyone in a position of responsibility. It is the context for Donald Trump`s quite obviously trolling tweet that you see here that Russians are meddling to help Democrats, a tweet that`s not news worthy for its voracity or any kind of admission, but more because the punchline assumes the Russians are meddling, something Donald Trump, of course, has repeatedly denied.
Now as for the part about favoring the Democrats, well, that claim has been contradicted by everyone from U.S. intelligence leaders hired by Trump to of course Putin himself who said last week he did indeed prefer a political party. It was Trump`s party, not the Democrats.
Now there`s no rule that the President has to keep talking about this or keep favoring Putin, but he does. And that has many Americans wondering about the national security priorities of this White House.
I begin tonight with a special guest, retired army lieutenant colonel Ralph Peters, a former FOX News analyst who left that network saying it was doing work as a propaganda machine.
Your view of the import of this tonight and what it means when the President does resort to an admission, but in such an obviously facile way?
LT. COL. RALPH PETERS (RET.), FORMER FOX NEWS ANALYST: One mistake that our intelligentsia and Europe have consistently may have on Trump is to underestimate him, to just dismiss him as crazy. He may be crazy. Well, he may be crazy, but he is also a genius at propaganda. And even as we mock that statement (INAUDIBLE) that Putin is out to help the Democrats, it plays to his base.
And Trump is a master of the classic big lie. Don`t tell little lies, you will get caught. Tell big lies, outrageous lies, and repeat them again and again and reinforce them with these really simple slogans that we also mock -- fake news, deep state, media is the enemy of the people. And it works because he repeats it again and again and again and again until his followers respond automatically.
You say Mueller investigation to a core Trump supporter, and either she say will immediately deep state. It`s a form of brainwashing. And frankly, Ari, we are helping even by talking about it tonight. Because Trump`s daily goal is to dominate the headlines, for better or worse, he just has to dominate them. And by God, what`s he got us talking about tonight? A nonsensical claim that Vladimir Putin, who owns Donald Trump, is out to help the Democrats. And what`s that doing? He has got us talking about something that buries Helsinki, and his, to me, evident treason.
MELBER: Well, you`re here to be an anecdote given your experience and your willingness to tell it like it is with regard to the fact checking, which is part of what we do, no matter who`s President. Let me play a little bit on what rebuts this claim. Take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did you want President Trump to win the election?
VLADIMIR PUTIN, RUSSIAN PRESIDENT (through translator): Yes, I did because he talked about bringing the U.S./Russia relationship back to normal.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: In 2017, intelligence assessment of the community, the finding said Putin and the Russian government developed a clear preference for President elect Trump.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MELBER: When you look at that, Putin saying it, which may or may not be true, and the U.S. intelligence saying it, what does it mean for us to counter this threat, which obviously is focused on impacting the United States as one nation, but continues to play out as intended, in a very polarizing way where apparently there are some people who are fine with the foreign help, if it helps their side.
PETERS: Well, one thing we have to do, and I hate to say this, is stop comforting ourselves with a lie that the truth will always win out in the end. When you are dealing with master propagandists like Trump or like Putin, the truth has an uphill battle and you have got to fight it constantly.
And by the way, Ari, one thing that Putin and Trump do have in common is that they are constantly underestimated. I mean, your old American intelligentsia underestimated Putin because he didn`t go to the right prep schools, he didn`t go to the right university, he had terrible table manners, and they dismissed him.
But one thing -- again, Putin, Trump, what we fail to realize is it`s the Harvard trained insiders don`t change the world. For better or worse, outsiders change history. And, you know, Putin has been dismissed as a mere KGB lieutenant colonel, Hitler was a lance corporal, Jesus was an illiterate rabbi, Muhammad was an illiterate merchant and Napoleon was --.
MELBER: And a carpenter. I believe he was also a carpenter.
PETERS: Yes, and a carpenter. But my point is, if you go through history, the people that have forced change for better and worse, and in Trump`s case distinctly worse, as in Putin`s case, they are the outsider who are underestimated. And before you know it they are in the right stand whether they are in the White House or in the Kremlin.
MELBER: Look, you are firing on all cylinders tonight, which is why we appreciate you. I think you are making an important, deeper point which is being very wary of patronizing or dismissing the language, the rhetoric, some of the lies that Donald Trump puts out there, particularly when that is read as being disdainful of his supporters and his followers.
And we say that with something we`re going to discuss later in the show tonight, which is the President now has the highest intraparty support of anyone since Bush after 9/11 which tells you something about polarization, even after we also learn tonight he has record high disapproval, over 50 percent.
One more security I want to ask you about will ever before I lose you to a senator who is waiting and important, Senator Mark Warner. When you look at the following, I want your analysis, this is Senator Cantwell talking about exactly what we are learning tonight that put all the politics aside, these hackers are a threat to our grid. Take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. MARIA CANTWELL (D), WASHINGTON: It is wildly known that the United States is a constant -- at constant threat from cyberattacks, and many of those cyber acts were come to the same conclusion. It is not an if, but a when, when a massive attack on our grid will occur.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MELBER: How concerned should Americans be about vulnerability of these grids?
PETERS: Well, you should be extremely concerned about the vulnerability -- the water system as well as the electricity system, about the banking system, about communications. The Russians are -- they have turned clams in his head. Instead of war being a continuation of politics by the means, for the Russians, politics are a continuation of war or policy is a continuation of war. And what they are doing to us, Ari, is prepping us for, in a crisis, for their -- them to be capable of just shutting America down.
MELBER: Right.
PETERS: And when we have a President unwilling to protect us, unwilling to take a stand, as my old drill sergeant said, we are in boku deep kimchi, comrade (ph).
MELBER: Well, if I knew what that means, I would give a more detailed response. But some of us in the show, people say thinks that the audience understands and the participants don`t.
PETERS: The vets get it.
MELBER: The vets get it. You will have to educate me more.
Lieutenant colonel Ralph Peters, thank you as always.
I turn now to Senator Mark Warner, vice chairman of the senate intelligence committee making time for us in a very evening.
Donald Trump talking about this in a way that is obviously blatantly misleading. What do you think is actually significant here tonight? And same question to you on your concerns about the safety of our grid.
SEN. MARK WARNER (D-WA), VICE CHAIRMAN, INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE: Well, Ari, let me take them in reverse order. I have been saying for some time, you know, America just passed a budget, the largest defense budget ever, $713 billion. Russia has a defense budget of about $67 billion. We are spending 10x what they are spending. And I worry at times, and this is not a partisan stab at actually Trump or any, but that we are -- we may be buying the world`s best 20th century military in terms of tanks and guns and trucks when 21st century conflict may be more in the realm of cyber and misinformation and disinformation. And we see Russia actively using these tools.
Matter of fact, we shouldn`t be surprised the equivalent of the chairman of the Russian joint chiefs of staff back in 2011 said that Russia couldn`t compete with the west with traditional armaments, but within cyber, with misinformation and disinformation, they could compete. And frankly whether it is threatening the grid, whether it is manipulating our elections or manipulating social media, and candidly we are seeing the same tactics come from China in terms of theft of intellectual property and luring in some of our top tech companies in ways that are frankly unfair and biased towards China, I do think we need a 21st century security doctrine that represents where a lot of these conflicts may take place. And I don`t think -- I think we are seeing the American intelligence community and others move in that direction. But what makes it so much more challenging right now is when you have got a President, as your previous commentator indicated, that just doesn`t acknowledge the threat, doesn`t acknowledge the vulnerability and tends to talk in hyperbole, in ways that frankly should concern all of us.
I mean, what I think many of us are appealing to our Republican colleagues don`t just tweet about it, don`t just privately acknowledge how off the rails this President is with his comments and some of his policies, but it`s really time for all of us, I think history is going to judge all of us over these coming weeks how we react.
MELBER: You say that, you mention your colleagues, John Kennedy, a Republican, used stark language today about some of the people targeted by this big, and perhaps melodramatic threat from the White House to take security clearances. And that issue does have others asking about whether we are facing a kind of enemies list. Take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. JOHN KENNEDY (R), LOUISIANA: Mr. Clapper and Mr. Brennan have been acting like political hacks. Now, that`s not illegal, but it`s unusual. Should you revoke somebody`s security clearance because they`ve been acting like a butt head? I don`t know. You know, I`m -- maybe the right thing to do is just to ignore the butt heads.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WARNER: Well, Ari, I would more take Senator Corker`s comments. First of all, this White House laid out this so-called enemies list to people that they were threatening, a couple of which you`ve already had their security clearances revoked when they were either fired or when they were quit, in the case of Comey and McCabe. But the idea that long-term intelligence professionals, who have served both Presidents of both parties, and in the case of General Hayden was actually a Republican appointee, the fact that they are expressing their first amendment rights and their now being threatened, that is something that would be the actions that would come out of a Venezuela, or would be definitely the kind of actions that President Putin would take against any kind of internal threat. That does not represent who we stand for as a country.
And frankly, the idea that you`re going to threaten somebody based upon them exercising their first amendment rights is pretty astounding. And this is where, again, and I think your previous commentator was right, you know, the President rallies his base with these slogans and broad-based (INAUDIBLE) attacks.
But the facts remain that the majority and I believe overwhelming majority of Americans believe the President got snookered in Helsinki, then he basically was played, played as a fool, I believe. It was an embarrassment not only to our country but to our allies. And more Americans need to step up. And frankly, more of my colleagues need to step up, not just with an accessional tweetish but some of the legislation we are talking about in terms of restraining the President`s ability, if the Russians, when the Russians intervene again, for him not to have an ability to kind of lay off the Russians, to have an immediate, additional sanctions or other tools going into place. We need to send a message, even if the President won`t stand up for America, that Congress as elected representatives will and in terms of national security.
MELBER: Right.
And while I have you, last question, because we want to cover a lot of different policy, this Supreme Court nominee picked by Donald Trump, with quite a shocker, the unanimous, basically bipartisan appointee decision in the Nixon case was that the rule of law apply to the President, and the tapes come out. I mean, most people remember that whether he went to law school or not.
Judge Kavanaugh saying maybe that was wrongly decided. Maybe Nixon was wrongly decided and that was cause of attention at the time. Does that view concern you? And do you think the White House may have picked him up in part because he seems to be more solicitous towards the Nixon view than holding a President accountable?
WARNER: Well, Ari, I mean, I think it was pretty remarkable at first that the White House, this President outsourced his Supreme Court choices to the federalist society. So he already had a prearranged group that was anti- choice, that was anti, you know, the protections of the Obamacare in terms of folks with preexisting conditions. That had all the conservative positions.
It is kind of curious, the more we see judge Kavanaugh`s record about this imperial view of the presidency. The fact that he is not willing to stand with traditional American jurisprudence about holding President Nixon accountable, then, Lord knows where he stands on this President. And unfortunately, that may be one of the reasons he was selected.
MELBER: All right. And I mean, that`s a big question people are asking, was that something that put him somehow head and shoulders above.
Senator Mark Warner, thank you -- go ahead.
WARNER: We need to get all -- not only his opinions, but we ought to hold this judge to the same standards that Judge Kagan was held to, that we ought to be able to at least get a look at his writings and emails when he was in the White House for President Bush.
MELBER: Very interesting. Senator Mark Warner, thank you.
WARNER: Thank you, Ari.
MELBER: Paul Ryan is saying that Trump is just trolling people with the issues I was just discussing with Senator Warner. Others say this is a banana Republican. We have a big guest on that.
And Michael Cohen with a new warning shot tonight about potential cooperation.
Plus, we will show you how Trump found a new opponent today, reality itself.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Just remember what you are seeing and what you are reading is not what`s happening.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MELBER: Steve Schmidt is happening. We will get his reaction.
I`m Ari Melber. You are watching THE BEAT on MSNBC.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MELBER: Speaker Paul Ryan has found many different ways to downplay things Donald Trump says and does. Here he is responding to the plan to potentially cut off intel to veterans who have criticized Trump.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. PAUL RYAN (R), SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE: I think he is trolling people, honestly. This is something that`s in the purview of the executive branch. Some of these people have already lost their clearances. Some people keep their clearances. That is something that the executive branch deals. It`s not really in our purview.
KASIE HUNT, NBC NEWS REPORTER: The banana republic comments some of your colleagues have made --
RYAN: I think he`s trolling people.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MELBER: Christina Greer, a fellow in NYU McSilver Institute, Howard Dean, former governor of Vermont and DNC chair and "the Atlantic`s" Natasha Bertrand.
Governor, it is in the executive`s purview, like so many executive activities. And the question is whether it`s any good as an idea or not, whether it`s appropriate, and Speaker Ryan apparently thinks calling it trolling means it`s OK or doesn`t have to deal with it.
HOWARD DEAN (D), FORMER VERMONT GOVERNOR: Well, look, I think speaker Ryan more or less signed out quite some time ago. So I don`t put a lot of credence into what he says. He is just playing it around. I don`t think it`s a good idea to withdraw people`s -- capable people`s security clearance.
Trump talks about removing Comey and McCabe`s security clearance, already removed, which of course, you would expect him not to know because he doesn`t care. The rest is just political nonsense. And it`s -- you know, it`s vindictive and it is stupid and it is bad for the country, just like President`s presidency.
MELBER: Yes. Cristina, take a listen to Senator Corker comments that reverberated they were referenced in that clip and reference earlier in the show by Senator Warner. Here they are now.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. BOB CORKER (R), TENNESSEE: I can`t even believe that somebody at the White House thought up something like this. I mean, when you are going to start taking retribution against people who are your political enemies in this manner, that`s the kind of thing that happens in Venezuela. It`s a banana republic kind of thing.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHRISTINA GREER, FELLOW, NYU MCSILVER INSTITUTE: I don`t disagree. I mean, we know that Trump is trying to be an authoritarian President. We have seen him ruin relationships with our allies. We see that he admires Duterte from the Philippines, Putin, Kim Jong-un. I mean, these are not people known to respect the media or their citizenry.
So this is a president who likes minions, and they come to him with -- you know, listen, there`s nothing more dangerous than an insecure man, OK. And so, we should be very scared because our President is highly insecure.
So people come to him every day and evening, before he starts his rage tweeting at night and before he wakes up in the morning at 6:00 a.m. and they say, well, here is another way that we can get back at the Democrats or here is another way that we can back at Obama or Hillary Clinton, because he still tweets about them on a regular basis.
And so what is really dangerous, though, is that the Republican Party in Congress is not doing its job, it`s mandated by the framers in the constitution to serve as a check on a President who -- the institution of the presidency has slowly expanded over time since George Washington until Donald Trump. That`s not Donald Trump`s fault, per se.
But as the bureaucracy and the presidency has expanded, the presidency has become more and more powerful. The difference is, he is no longer looking to Congress as a relationship the way Obama and even George Bush did.
This is a man who sees himself as an authoritarian. Keep in mind when he had his business, he never had a board of advisers or board of trustees.
MELBER: Right.
GREER: It`s always been him in charge. And because he likes this idea that he is the big man around the world, even though Singapore was a failure, Helsinki was a failure, I mean, he is not getting anything. But as long as his supporters feel as though he is the strong authoritarian, he will still keep throwing things into the media and we will keep talking about it.
MELBER: Right. And what you are saying, though, is a lot of this comes back to what is the accountability of everyone else.
I mean, Natasha, you could go to a party and you don`t know what`s going to happen there. And then people start robbing the house. They take the TV, they take the chandelier, they take the candlesticks. At a certain point, if you stay there, even if you don`t take the candlesticks, you start to become part of the group robbery. I mean, you are standing by, you are a party to it, rather than doing something, whether that`s leaving or getting help or whatever.
And so you think about that. Take a look at the attorney general of the United States, not a political figure, not a candidate, the current attorney general, all of this coming in the same week, the same mood, here he was today.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
AUDIENCE: Lock her up! Lock her up! Lock her up! Lock her up! Lock her up! Lock her up!
JEFF SESSIONS, U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL: Lock her up? Well, I heard that a long time on the last campaign.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MELBER: Speak to the mainlining of this, those are high school students, look, peer pressure is strong, but those are high school students. The attorney general needs to be able to stand up to drug lords and foreign dictators and high school peer pressure.
NATASHA BERTRAND, STAFF WRITER, THE ATLANTIC: Right, the attorney general really could have used this as a teaching moment, perhaps to be the mature one in the room. But this is an example of how the boundaries of what is normal have just expanded so much. And, of course, Paul Ryan saying that the President was just trolling people by suggesting that he is going to revoke these former high-level intel and national security officials` clearances is a perfect example of that as well.
I mean, we already saw just a few hours ago Hogan Gidley, one of the White House press people, says that the President has already begun the process of revoking these security clearances. So this is not a joke. This is not just him trolling. This not just a distraction. And the slow process of (INAUDIBLE) to the President`s outrageous behavior that is just so outside the norms of any previous past president has really eroded people`s ability to distinguish between what is normal and what is just and what is fair, and what isn`t. And the idea that he would revoke their security clearances, the idea that the attorney general would laugh and say that Hillary Clinton should be locked up along with these students, it`s just -- it`s the perfect example of that. And, of course, this is a tool that`s going to be used now to allow the President to say, well, if I could revoke these people`s security clearances, what else can I do? It`s just -- it`s a slippery slope. And Paul Ryan saying that he is just trolling people, well, he`s in for a wake-up call because the President is already looking at how to do this.
GREER: I mean, I couldn`t agree more. This is a President also who is testing the boundaries of citizenship, right, not just his quote-unquote "illegals." I mean, he is now actively trying to go after people who are green cards and people who have processed as citizens. I mean, so he is opening up a Pandora`s Box where his party is just sitting there, saying, there`s nothing to see here. There is nothing to worry about.
But we are in a crisis, right. And I think the norms that we have become so accustomed to and have quite honestly taken for granted because we thought that they were part of an institutional structure and they are not. And so Trump is actually exposing just how tenuous our democracy actually is.
MELBER: Because institutions are made of people.
GREER: I mean, people are the ones who actually fundamentally control and lead and guide what this nation should be.
MELBER: And the people -- Howard Dean, take us inside the mind of a grizzled political veteran in Congress who is 60 or 70 or 75. If this is more or less your last chapter of career, maybe not of life, people live very long, but you know you are not at the beginning of your career, why do you think there is so much fear and such an inability of anyone who is an active Republican to deal at all with this?
DEAN: I think this is the tragedy for our country. What Trump is has unmasked is not his own lunacy and his authoritarianism. Certainly, he`s had that for a long time. What`s been unmasked here is a failure of the country especially the Republican Party to stand up for America. The -- it was correct the statement that the Framers, tried to set up something that wasn`t going to happen but it relied on individuals to stand up for what they believed was right about America. The Republicans have uniformly refused to do that. This man needs to leave office and the Democrats can`t do a thing about that.
And even if we win both the House and the Senate in the fall, we can`t do anything about it because you need 2/3 of the votes of the Senate to get rid of them. We can`t do it without Republicans. When Dick Nixon cheated the people and lied to their face about a two-bit burglary, the Republicans went to him and said Mr. President you have to leave office. There is no courage of any kind in the Republican Party today and the country depends on their courage.
MELBER: Howard Dean, a fitting point to reflect on. Christina Greer and Natasha Bertrand thanks to each of you. Up ahead, Donald Trump saying what you`re seeing is not what`s happening, an important corrective. Steve Schmidt is here when we`re back in just 30 seconds.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MELBER: We`re back with the other top story tonight. Donald Trump`s longtime lawyer packing a new punch. Michael Cohen telling people he is ready for a planned alleged smear campaign by Trump`s team. If they think for a second the efforts to discredit me are known to me they`re sadly mistaken and adding did they think I was just going to roll over and die. Now, these quotes are leaking from sources as prosecutors get their hands on those new recordings. Cohen secretly made including allegedly recordings of Trump. A person close to Cohen telling Vanity Fair, when Michael says he wants the truth out there and the truth is not the President`s friend, he`s not talking about marginal issues. He`s talking about core issues at the heart of the Mueller probe.
Now, Mueller`s two core issues are the Russian election conspiracy of course and potential collusion. Cohen never served in the White House so this does sound like Cohen`s people saying I know what you did last summer or a few summers ago in the election. Trump`s lawyers say they`re not afraid of collusion questions, in fact, that`s the kind of interview they would allow they say one topic for Trump. Now no subject of a probe gets to dictate the topics. We all know that by now. And we also know Mueller is probing those obstruction issues around Flynn, around Comey, around Trump coaching witnesses who attended the seemingly incriminating Trump Tower meaning. And while Rudy Giuliani claims they do want to steer clear of obstruction, it`s the White House that`s again taking shots at those FBI veterans they ousted.
I`m joined now by former U.S. Attorney Guy Lewis. He`s worked with Mueller, Comey, and Rod Rosenstein at the DOJ. The Michael Cohen saga seems to have a new chapter every day but the headline has remained similar, a sense he got to this aggressive phase in the last few weeks. He`s sending these messages that he doesn`t want to be trifled with and he`s willing to flip. Do you think there`s anything left for him to say in public or is it time to walk down into the office and get it done?
GUY LEWIS, FORMER U.S. ATTORNEY: No, I think, Ari, I think there`s still some maneuvering going on here, but this tells me for sure. This is exactly why the attorney Michael Cohen recorded his client. That`s an extraordinary thing. I`ve been doing this for 35 years and I`ve never done it except as a prosecutor when I was trying to investigate both the lawyer and the client. Then I would send the lawyer in to say who`s cooperating and say hey record your client. That didn`t happen here, and you saw even the tweet saying from the President saying it`s outrageous that my client - - I mean, my lawyer Michael Cohen would record me. But there`s a reason why he did it because he has seen before this President attack, attack, attack. And knowing that, he`s got these tapes in his pocket along with documents and maybe some other memos and he`s going to use them when he needs them.
MELBER: When you look at what he is doing you know, with the team he has around him do you think these tapes help that much or when he says to Vanity Fair through sources oh it`s really about the back story, does that does that imply that maybe these tapes aren`t as exciting as everyone may have hoped?
LEWIS: Well it`s hard to say at this point, Ari. I mean, I know that it to waive the privilege, the attorney-client privilege which is extraordinary, I mean it`s as important as you`re privileged with your priest or your rabbi. I mean, it almost never happens as a defense lawyer. There is one way though that prosecutors go in and regularly defeat that privilege and that`s the crime-fraud exception which nobody`s really talking about right now. And so the prosecutor --
MELBER: Well, we`ll talk about it with you on the screen since you bring it up. Waiving privilege one lawyer argues is better for P.R. than a judge determining the crime-fraud exception applies which would mean the Special Master determined there was cause to believe the communications were made in furtherance of a crime. And if you really want to go digging in the crates back through the history, Paul Manafort`s lawyers were subject to this and had the privilege expunged by none other than the Mueller`s investigators at an earlier stage in this investigation.
LEWIS: That`s exactly right. It`s an aggressive tactic that I`ve used several times when I was a prosecutor. You go in and you say judge they`re claiming that these documents or these tapes or these other materials are privileged and I can`t look at them and I can`t use them. But Judge, there was no privilege here because a crime was going on, a crime that the defense lawyer was participating in and a crime that the client was participating in, and therefore, Judge, there is no privilege. The only time re that I`ve seen defense lawyers come out and wave it and basically get out front of this thing which is what I think`s happening here is when the government has a well-founded motion.
MELBER: Guy Lewis, always digging underneath the rock and giving us a little extra, thank you very much. Up next, Donald Trump is telling voters as we showed you not to believe their own eyes, believe him instead. Steve Schmidt is here on the President and the truth up next.
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MELBER: New polls show a majority of Americans disapprove of Donald Trump`s performance as president while Republicans are more loyal to him right now than any president`s own party unity since the GOP rallied around Bush after 9/11. My next guest worked many Republican campaigns but opposes Trump`s policies and left the party over them. That`s political strategist Steve Schmidt who joins me in a moment.
Now, Donald Trump not only polarized his people`s feelings, he polarizes the very perception of reality out there and he knows it. Consider Trump today in Kansas City warning people if they don`t see the economy improving with their own eyes, it`s because what they see is not real.
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DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: This country is doing better than it`s ever done before economically.
But it`s all working out and just remember, what you`re seeing and what you`re reading is not what`s happening.
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MELBER: While many politicians, of course, cherry-pick information, Trump`s blatant requests that people ignore their own eyes could literally be ripped from George Orwell`s famous dystopian novel 1984 which cast partisan censorship of truth as the party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. Now liberals have long attacked Trump as bad for working people, a con man who ran on populism but governed for the one percent kind of a policy thief. Another critique is that Trump is actually challenging something more valuable than property, our sense of reality itself.
Consider another dystopian writer Curtis Jackson who said, hate a liar more than I hate a thief. A thief is only after my salary, a liar is after my reality. In fact, in that same song, there is another axiom "Here`s a jewel. Love your enemies and hate your friends your enemies remain the same, friends always change." And some of the friends who know Trump best are changing, Michael Cohen, Rick gates, Mike Flynn.
Meanwhile, Trump`s wider cast of political friends if you want to call them that, Republicans who`ve never met him around the country they`re standing strong tonight and appear down with his reality. I`m joined by Steve Schmidt. Steve, what do you think Trump is doing and is he aware to some degree that denying the publicly reported reality is key to his re- election?
STEVE SCHMIDT, MSNBC POLITICAL ANALYST: Of course, Ari. You talked about 1984. There`s the famous scene at the end of the book where Winston is being tortured and the party official is holding up four fingers and says to Winston how many fingers am I holding up? And Winston being tortured in tears says I only see four. I see four. And the party official says it could be three or it could be five, it`s what the party tells you it is. And so it`s not just that Trump is assaulting objective truth, this is a political strategy.
This is about a demand for obedience. This is the transformation of a smaller Republican Party into a cult of personality where what the leader says is true is true. What the leader feels to be true is true. And if you can subordinate reality at the command of a political leader, you are no longer functionally living in a democracy whether it`s inside the United States or not. For a faction of this country they have surrendered their sovereignty, their intellectual autonomy to Donald Trump.
Now I`m not a psychiatrist, I`m not a psychologist, I can`t explain why if you were to join a cult why he would be the cult leader that you would line up and follow. That being said though, when you`re able to convince somebody what is certainly true is not when you can embrace the big lie with the same type of effectiveness that fascist movements used it, that Hitler used it, that Mussolini used it, that Soviets used it, then you are well on your way to doing grave and lasting damage to the fundamental institutional pillars of a Democratic Republic like the United States.
MELBER: And this president does not stand accused of the conduct of some of those regimes but with regard to the information there, the propaganda efforts this seems to be where a Trump`s approach. And his insistence that things that are true are false relates to the way he`s allegedly abusing the powers of the executive to control who has access to information to legitimize who can speak about national security and who can`t which dovetails back with the security clearance story. For your reaction take a look at Sarah Sanders on that.
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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Is Russia still targeting the U.S. Mr. President?
TRUMP: Thank you very much. No.
SARAH HUCKABEE SANDERS, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: Press, let`s go. Make your way out.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No, meaning that not to be the case?
SANDERS: I had the chance to speak with the President after his comments and the president was -- said thank you very much and was saying no to answering questions.
The President is exploring these mechanisms to resume -- remove security clearance because they`ve politicized and in some cases actually monetized their public service and their security clearances and making baseless accusations of improper contact with Russia or being influenced by Russia against the President is extremely inappropriate.
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MELBER: Steve?
SCHMIDT: Ari, it`s not just that there`s no other spokesperson for the executive seat of power and a Democratic Republic anywhere in the world where you see that type of lying, it`s that there has never been a spokesperson for the executive seat in power who is such a prolific liar as Sarah Sanders. She is straight out of Baghdad Bob. It`s truly remarkable the magnitude of her daily -- her daily lying. But look this is all part of a political strategy and I`ve talked about it before.
Trump uses mass rallies and constant lying to incite fervor in a political base. Two, he scapegoats minority populations and cast them to be blamed for every problem in the world. Three, he allows for his supporters to feel victimized, to feel victimized by the scapegoated populations. Everyone is a victim in Trump nation by design. It`s part of the fuel. The last thing is the conspiracy, the coordination of the conspiracy between the deep state, the nefarious sources, the people when he talked about for example Clapper, someone got to him yesterday. And then lastly the assertion that Trump is above the law by Trump himself, that Trump defines what his reality, that Trump defines what`s truth and that Trump asserts heretofore unassertive powers for the executive in the United States that have never been asserted in history before.
These five things are happening they`re happening on a daily basis. The assault on the press, on the free media. We still have a First Amendment in this country but he is as hostile to the free media as any president has ever been and any president could conceivably be in the United States. And so all of these things together are not isolated, it`s part of a pattern, it`s part of a strategy and it`s going to do grave damage to American democracy. And this is a moment in time where Republican leaders who have been complicit, have been silent, have been cowardice, or called on to defend the institutions not of conservatism, not of the small out liberalism that the Democratic Party embraces but the fundamental pillars of a liberal democratic society which he is weakening every day.
MELBER: Right and that`s the connection as you draw it between the assault on facts, the potential abuse of government power, and the undermining of the rule of law. Of course, it is law that ultimately is the way we adjudicate certain factual debates in this country, all of those things happening together. Steve Schmidt, thank you so much for joining THE BEAT tonight.
SCHMIDT: Good to be with you. Thank you.
MELBER: We are now 48 hours from a deadline to reunite thousands of those families who were separated by Trump`s executive order. It`s a story we`re staying on and we have a new judge`s ruling that came out tonight. We`re going to show it to you next.
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MELBER: The Trump administration now has just 48 hours to try to partly address the humanitarian crisis its created at the border which has now ripped away 3,000 children from their parents. We can report tonight that moments ago, a California federal judge barred the government from further deporting parents before they can reunite with their children for their shot at legal asylum. This move comes after the Trump administration admitted yesterday it has deported more than -- get this -- 460 parent migrants without their children.
A new ACLU case meanwhile argues that so far less than 1,000 parents have been reunified with their children and many have been deemed they argue "ineligible for reunification compared to the just 879 reunited." So you have small children as well as their parents around this country right now wondering what will happen. Will they be reunited? We once brought you a story of a Guatemalan asylum seeker whose son believed he was dead.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (Speaking Spanish)
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MELBER: That was earlier in July when they spoke. Last night we have an update for you. You can see that father and a six-year-old son reunited after what was this U.S. government two months separation. Many observers questioned whether the son could at least recognize his father initially in this a heart-warming video no matter what. Now in two days, hundreds of parents are now supposed to have that version of their own fate. And the question is what will the Trump administration do to follow what are now their legal requirements and what happens if they fail another deadline?
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MELBER: That does it for me. I`ll see you back here at 6:00 Eastern tomorrow for our special anniversary edition, but up next it`s "HARDBALL" with Chris Matthews.
CHRIS MATTHEWS, MSNBC HOST: Strongman. Let`s play HARDBALL.
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