majority leader are coming to an end very soon, the fight has just begun. that closes out the hour for me, deadline white house with nicole wallace starts right now. hi, everyone. it's 4:00 in new york, it's long been said and i witnessed it in action, if you want a friend in washington, get a dog. at this hour, i'm willing to bet jeff sessions has his face pressed against the glass of a pet store picking out a puppy, on the outs with president trump for recusing himself from the russia investigation, being name dropped by his whole -- -- and under the gun from the president and powerful republicans to appoint a special counsel to investigate and prosecute trump's former rival hillary clinton, sessions sought to set the record straight again today. in testimony before the house judiciary committee, sessions defended himself against charges

that he lied to congress in his recollections about his own contacts with russia and about his knowledge of campaign aides' contacts with russians. his previous testimony was called into question after trump campaign age george popadopoulos revealed that he had spoken to sessions about arranging a meeting between donald trump and vladimir putin. >> frankly i have no recollection of this meeting until i saw these news reports. i do now recall that the march 2016 meeting at the trump hotel, that mr. popadopoulos attended, but i have no clear recollection of the details of what he said at that meeting. after reading his account and to the best of my recollection, i believe that i wanted to make clear to him that he was not authorized to represent the campaign with the russian government or any other foreign government for that matter. but i did not recall this event which occurred 18 months before

my testimony of a few weeks ago and i would gladly have reported it had i remembered it. >> sessions who is on the defensive for giving false testimony on the russia front also took heat from republicans who share donald trump's zeal to see a special counsel appointed to investigate hillary clinton. >> what's it going to take to actually get a special counsel? >> it would take a factual basis that meets the standards of the appointment. >> we know one fact, we know the clinton campaign, the democrat national committee paid for through the law firm paid for the dossier, we know that happened. and it sure looks like the fbi was paying the author of that document and it sure looks like a major political party was working with the federal government to then turn an opposition research document the equivalent of some national enquirer story into an intelligence document, take that to the fisa court to spy on

members of the trump campaign. >> we have an excellent man of integrity and ability and he's going to do an outstanding job. >> i'm asking for a special county -- >> it looks like there's not enough basis to appoint a special counsel. >> we hope you tell that to the president, mr. special counsel. peter baker, chief white house correspondent for the "new york times" and an msnbc analyst, and jeremy bash, former chief of staff at both the cia and at the pentagon. with me here at the table, megan murphy, donnie deutsch is here, former secretary of state under the obama administration.

but besides that, this zeal, this sort of bringing into the light what is sort of -- i don't know what better word, a political taboo, investigating and prosecuting your former political rival is just, you know, for an administration that churns through norms by the hour, it's stunning. >> it sure is. first off, though, i hope jeff sessions does not get a puppy, he's g ee's going to remember t him, he's not going to remember to give him water or to let him out. if he should get anything, he should get a cat, they're much easier. look, this very serious business, we take a leap, a giant leap as a country towards the banana republic line when special counsel is announced to investigate this uranium deal. this is crazy stuff. conspiracy theories out of the

info wars website. it would be a lot better if jim jordan was required to wear a tinfoil hat. because for a casual observer, you look and said for a member of congress, is this meritorious? this is top to bomttom, a to z, total, absolute nonsense talk. >> explain why. i mean the fbi, the reason there's a special counsel investigating donald trump's campaign and their ties to russia, is because donald trump fired the man who was heading the investigation, jim comey who ran the fbi. there's not a single allegation that any law enforcement official career or otherwise has been thwarted in their desire or effort to investigate anything having to do with -- >> of course not. this is plain and simple pure political retaliation against a political opponent. i mean this is what you see in bannana republics, you don't se

this in healthy democracies where there is a rule of law. the transactions on uranium one required nine different governmental agencies to approve it. it had nothing to do with hillary clinton. the fbi did not fund the dossier, the dossier was part of a campaign opposition research effort. the man who put the dossier together is a retired british intelligence agent. and by the way, there's nothing in that dossier to my mind that i have seen that's ever been discredited. we don't spend any time talking about the items in the dossier, simply the giant conspiracy around it. one of the most pernicious effects of the trump administration with the nonstop lying from the podium, from the president, the vice president, on down everywhere is the american people are becoming desensitized to the concept of

truth, that up is up, down is down and when you live in a society in a culture where red can be blue and blue can be red, that truth is subjective. that truth is dependent on what tribe you belong to. we're in dangerous, dangerous currents. >> that's what a dictator does. that's what a dictator does when he says he wants to end free media, that's what a dictator does when he wants to put his family in power. i disagree with one thing, i don't think it's retaliation, it's a simple redirect. right now at the top of the show, we were discussing the hiring of a special prosecutor for hillary, to sessions talking about meetings about russia. i just want to ask a question along those lines, when is the last time any of you were sitting with bush in a campaign -- if i asked either one of you, do you remember in

any meeting where somebody suggested we should get dirt from the kremlin on our opponent, would you have a pretty vivid memory of that? and this is 18 months s ago. >> you want to keep it rail, there was a smear run against john kerry in 2004, it was called the swift boat veterans for truth. and we wouldn't touch it. this may sound prissy in today's standards, but i would have a clear memory of it. and i knew where the lines were because i knew where george w. bush's lines were. >> so it's not something that would fallthrough the cracks of your memory. >> it was not something that was tawdry, it came from a foreign adversary. >> i agree with the general premise, the problem is there are no norms anymore and when we talk about, oh, this is the violation of the norm of this, and this is a violation of norm

of that. the problem is we can't do it by citing norms. this will have to fight itself out in the marketplace. that doesn't, work anymore. you can't combat a lie with the truth anymore. that's the problem with this whole thing. >> there are still norms. i think there are still norms. you're right it's a redirect and it's a retaliation and the redirect is from roy moore, an accused child sex offender, they want to get it as far away from it now. you know really getting to the point where we need to even have a norm of people saying i believe women this week, that is where we're at. the media and shifting on to this uranium one deal, i have frankly been disappointed with the coverage on it when the premise has been debunked according to the secretary of state's rule, et cetera.

we need to stop chasing the bait. >> that's what authoritarians do too. they base it on this idea that we are objective and that we have to report the thing that we know is a lie and try to debunk it as something we know isn't true. >> we have 50 minutes. so let's make the most of it. jeremy bash, let me ask you to weigh in on two things, number one, does jeff sessions face any sort of criminal exposure? is it a crime to lie in front of congress in testimony? >> absolutely, it's a violation of a tchl. the a.t. 131. >> has anyone been prosecuted under that? >> absolutely and it's a crime to lie to any federal investigative body, whether it's an fbi interview or whether it's a congressional investigative bo body. of course there's criminal liability. i think the likelihood of an independent counsel or

prosecutor prosecuting jeff sessions under that statute is very small because it will go back to his memory and those kinds of things. but just take a look at the testimony today, basically what he said was, i don't remember the meeting, i don't remember this guy, i don't remember saying anything, but i shut it down, i asked him to stop working with russia. both can't be accurate. he cannot have not remembered the meeting with popadopoulos and be clear about membering asking popadopoulos to cut it out. >> this is instructive in terms of how we got here. when he was first before congress, he lied or misspoke in his words, but it ended up being a lie that he had no contact with russians. he amended it by saying i didn't have any conversations, now that we know he had conversations

with kislayak, i didn't have any conversations about the campaign. and now he's saying he didn't have any conversations with kislayak at the mayflower that were material, that were related or in the capacity of a campaign surrogate. the latest correction to his own record is in the wake of bob mueller's not just in the wake of george popadopoulos, but pop l popadopoulos has now pled guilty to purj perjury so is there something that should make -- >> is to ftry to present tough questions to witnesses. it i think what attorney general sessions should have done from the get-go is say, look, let me tell you about all the interactions we had with officials of the russian federation, let me talk to you about all the conversations with account russia.

we think it was that innocuous, that we didn't apursue it, but e want to be clear that there were discussions and i opposed it or i supported it or whatever his position is. he's taken the line that there were no conversations, there's nothing to see here and i think that's come out that that's not correct. >> there were conversations with these people who were so clueless, i couldn't be expected to remember them. let's watch and talk about it on the other side. >> none of you had a part in the trump campaign. and it was a brilliant campaign, i think, in many ways, but it was a form of chaos every day from day one. i was asked to lead, inform and find some people who would join and meet with mr. trump to give him advice and support regarding foreign policy and i did so, although we were not a very

effective group really. >> so, peter, my theory is that he's smelling there, because he's like, have you seen these guys? i mean they're dopes. i was in charge of running a foreign policy team that was some version of the "star wars" bar. this was a common line against establishment figures that sort of parachuted themselves into the general election existence of the trump campaign. they often came out of it with a look on their face like what jeff situations just had on his. >> well, in fact, we saw steve bannon say just last week in an interview with my colleague here at the time, he said my collusion with russia was fanciful because we couldn't even collude with -- how could we be so smart to collude with russia considering how incompetent we were. >> the stupidity defense? >> better than the criminal

defense, right? >> heck yes. but is that where we are, we're either criminal or stupid? >> well, i'm sure there's some other options, but certainly what you're hearing from a lot of people around president trump is, this is much more chaotic than you even imagine, this is not a normal campaign, those of you who are trying to impose the standards of a normal campaign, those of you like the bush veterans, the clinton veterans and the obama veterans somehow did not know how completely disorganized we were. that part is true, whether it excuses things i don't know, but it was an unusual campaign in that regard. >> usually things that weird are pretty memorable. i'm going to come back with peter's -- named a hostile intelligence service by the president's own cia director.

and being mike pence, is it really possible that the man sees and hears nothing? how mike pence stays clean when we come back. [ keyboard clacking ] [ click ] [ keyboard clacking ] [ clacking continues ] good questions lead to good answers. our advisors can help you find both. talk to one today and see why we're bullish on the future. yours.

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i don't know, i'm really not involved with the justice department. i would like to let it run itself. but honestly, they should be looking at the democrats. they should be looking at poed decemb podesta and all of that

dishonesty a l dishonesty and a lot of people are disappointed in the justice department including me. >> so donald trump asked and jeff sessions answered. donald trump told sessions to consider appointing a special prosecutor to investigate trump's foe. you're right, president trump did not need to send a memo to his attorney general to make his desires known, he broadcast them all on twitter. he made it clear, the instruction was clear, the justice department should investigate his opponent about the campaign. donald trump's appointee to the fbi is now in place, chris ray, donald trump hand picked him. he's a man of unquestioned integrity. and no account of a single fbi agent or law enforcement official has ever surfaced that anyone ever felt thwarted or

stymied in their efforts or desire or anything pertaining to the clintons, what is this about? >> it's about a couple of things, one of course is a way of changing the subject. president trump promised repeatedly in last year's campaign that if elected he would have his attorney prosecute mrs. clinton, remember the chants at the campaign rallies, lock her up. and then he said in an interview after the election that it wasn't going to pursue that. then come summer, things started looking a little hot and heavy with his own investigation and you gbegan to see these kind of tweets and these interviews with him saying what about them? what about them? why aren't we looking at them? he has made it clear how frustrated it is he doesn't get to control the justice department the way he thinks he ought to be able to. he thinks he ought to be able to start a political investigation against his political rival, and he thinks he should be able to

stop an investigation against his own campaign. so he doesn't seem -- he doesn't view the justice department the way american presidents and attorneys general have for the last four years in which there was a traditional separation when it came to individual prosecutions and individual investigations. >> jeremy, i spoke to a former official who worked at the highest levels of the bush and reagan and bush 41 justice departments who said that the attacks on the judiciary and the impulse to have the doj and the fbi serve as political instruments represent perhaps the sort of aspect of the executive branch to which donald trump is doing the most harm. one, do you agree with that assessment, and two, how do people who care, not democrat or republican controlled doj, but also just about the institution itself, how do they protect it from a president trump? >> yeah, i'm an institutionalist, nicole, i

think many of the people around the table there with you are as well. our view is that these institutions are important, they bridge between presidential administrations, they are sort of the life blood of our democracy. they're laid out in the constitution. the president talked about judges who overturned his immigration ban. he fired the fbi director when he didn't like the fbi director would not take a pledge of loyalty to the president personally. so these are very dangerous precedents. i think it's also important to add that this latest spasm of clinton, clinton, clinton, is really not about anything other than trying to change the subject from the president's statements about believing putin and his -- putin's claim that he didn't interview in the election, when the president takes putin at face value and disagrees with our own professional intelligence officials, it's another way he's undermining our professional cadre of national officials and believing our adversary.

>> he brings us back to -- donald trump does such a volume business it's easy to forget just 48 hours ago the president went out and revealed his true feelings which was he believes putin when he says he didn't interfere in the 20american election. >> the president represents our highest ideals and highest values, that's why they insist that the american free press be able to ask questions, even in front of dictatorial leaders. -- i wish i was in that system. it would be so much better. than all these restraints on my power here in the united states. he has a fetish for these autocratic leaders and these institutions in our country, anchored by the tradition of the rule of law. these are amongst the greatest

inheritances that we have. that have been paid for by the blood and sacrifice of patriots. and to see the daily assault on them and the lack of outrage from the senior elected officials in the republican party, the majority party, in the congress is just simply astounding. >> it's interesting you hypothesize that trump would want to be one of those guys. if you ask him directly, he comes as advertised, he says it every day in one form or another, that this is the way he thinks things should be done. something i think is going to be the ending of this story is that the very people he's picked the battles with, the justice department, the cia, the fbi the press, on the very people that are going to bring him down. the very institutions that wire worried about crumbling are the very institutions that are going to bring him down. that's not going to be fun to watch, that's going to be

satisfying to watch. the other thing about donald trump, when he brings hillary in, whatever scandal, he continues to brand the democratic party with hillary clinton. we're going to let her go away, the public wants to let her go. whatever the form is, he resurrects her and will continue to resurrect her because she's bad cop. >> i have a different theory. i was out last weekend, interviewing the democrats that voted for donald trump in pennsylvania and ohio. and some of that, they're all still with trump, but their reason, their reflex is to say, well, he's still better than her. i think that she brings his base, his 33% back to why they chose him in the first place. at a time when nothing else he's promised -- i mean what his voters bought was his promise to pull out of nafta, his promise of isolationism, he's now tweeting us into a nuclear standoff with north korea. he has not delivered on those

promises. >> he can't continue to run against her as this kind of puppet that he's bashing every time he gets in trouble, i agree, it's a diversionary tactic. all he needs to do is invoke her name and he gets a retaliatory response. he had no idea what the job description was of president. he didn't read it. it's called the constitution. he thought he was going to be an emperor, he thought he was going to be king. that all of these places reported to him. >> he didn't run the kind of company that would set you up to run the country. i mean there are some apple, and -- there are other companies with management structures and h hr departments and shareholders. and people -- personal friends will say, he was talent, he was a reality tv star, he was sort of a figure head on top of a company that put his name on buildings. >> but donnie's point is such an important one. this is the issue, we sit here

at tables and talk about how important these issues are that are written into our constitution, the very bedrock of american like and he assaults them every day, it's time for members of his own party to stand up -- i'm sick of being the media and going in and talking about these bedrock principles. you know what they're doing? they're sticking a repeal of the individual mandate in tax reform. these are people who sacrificed their fundamental principles to get to tax reform. enter wh >> when we come back, taking his queues from wikileaks, donald trump jr. is in trouble again for accepting assistance from russians and their allies. this holiday, the real gift isn't what's inside the box. it's what's inside the person who opens it. ♪ give ancestrydna, the only dna test that can trace your origins

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and all you have to do is take a look at wikileaks. this just came out. wikileaks. i love wikileaks. amazing how nothing's secret today when you talk about the internet. >> wikileaks. wikileaks. and they have got to start talking about wikileaks. the wonder of wikileaks. oh, we love wikileaks. they have really, wikileaks. they have revealed a lot. wikileaks. which i can le wikileaks. that came out on wikileaks. >> sorry, that doesn't sound real. that's not even all of it. donald trump mentioned wikileaks 140 times in the final months of the 2016 campaign, i think we may have just shown them to you, thanks to the breaks news in the atlantic yesterday in our hour. we know that don jr. talked to ---did the russian gover wike

the hacked dnc and podesta emails, if the answer is yes and the u.s. intelligence community says it is, then trump jr.'s correspondence is set to be one step away from russia. >> it's time to call out wikileaks for what it really is, a nonstate intelligence service often embedded by state opera operatives like russia. >> let me start with you, i want to put this in front of you and get your thoughts, donald trump had been receiving classified briefings, that i guess once you're the nominee of your party, start getting a sort of paired down version of the pdb, they started two months before donald trump jr. first responded to wikileaks in a direct message on twitter. it's certainly possible that donald trump wasn't briefed on,

what mike pompeo just said there, that wikileaks was essentially functioning has a hostile intelligence agent. but i wonld der if there's sort an added layer of potential conspiracy that the president's son was in communications and in cahoots with an organization that acts as an agent for russian intelligence? >> and whether or not don jr. knew they were acting as an agent for russian intelligence is something that bob mueller would investigate. i'm sure that don jr. went to his father and said we have got wikileaks on our side, they're hacking and donald trump sr. promoted that. i think this is another brick in the edifice of solution that we have seen here, it goes from carter page meeting with a deputy russian prime minister to popadopoulos meeting with a russian intelligence operator,

working with the entire hierarchy of the campaign, mike flynn. and then of course the key thing that remains, the high command of the campaign got an email that says this was part of the russian government support for donald trump's campaign. i think it's pretty clear that there was multiple avenues of collusion here. >> and so, let's just -- let's change the word, because i think collusion's become loaded. we now have -- the debate over whether there was coordination between the russians and the trump campaign is over, it's over, folks. there were nine contacts wi tha know of, you just laid out four of them. carter page, donald trump, jr., jared kushner, george popadopoulos, carter page, j.d. gordon, mike flynn and jeff sessions were all in contact and several of them, in coordination with the russians so the

collusion question has been asked and answered. if you can speak to where bob mueller will focus. he's looking at where crimes have taken place. where could crimes have taken place in those nine points of contact? >> collusion might not be the word, knowledge of the trump campaign that russia was interfering in our election is sufficient for bob mueller to look at whether computer crimes were used in aiding and abetting it in violation of federal election laws because foreign governments cannot provide contributions to a u.s. campaign. and assistance by a foreign agent which we already know that's affected manafort and flynn. in those three demain demains domains you will see bob miler investigating -- it is a dereliction of national

security, an evis ration of national security, to know that the russian federation is involving itself in an american political campaign and do nothing about it. >> a story in the 4:00 hour yesterday about don, jr. coordinating with an ally of the russian intelligence services, i thought back to the last time don, jr. was in the press for coordinating with russians, that donald trump seemed to lose his mind aboard air force one when he crafted a phony cover story, i think it was in response to your paper's questions about who don, jr. and paul manafort were meeting with. when the president comes back and sees his son again in the crosshairs of questions about this coordination and, i hate the word collusion, but contacts with wikileaks if the president will again try to take matters into his own hands as he did

last time? >> that's a question question, obviously. he's very sensitive that his son would come under investigation, would come under scrutiny like this, as you point out back in the summer during the examination of the meeting with the russian lawyer. what we learn a lot from these emails about wikileaks as we do about donald trump, jr., donald trump jr. did perhaps take a suggestion they made about having his father tweet out a link about wikileaks, which he did 15 minutes after the tweet came in. but they tell us that wikileaks itself realized -- >> let me put up what you just referenced, on october 12 at 8:31 wikileaks -- hey donald, great to see you and your dad talking about our

publications, strongly suggest your dad include this link if when he mentions. so dishonest, rigged system. then october 14, in the morning, pence denies the campaignwikile show you that, how this man stays in the dark is the eighth wonder of the world. october 14 at 9:34 a.m., don jr. tweets, for those who have the timeline all those wikileaks are right here. so the timeline bears out what you're speaking to, peter baker. >> and what we're talking got i to donald trump jr. that he has his father leak them his tax returns that he's never released, if they're going to

come out anyway, have it come out through us and it will change our reputation as being even handed rather than on your side. and wikileaks outs itself as an arm for the trump campaign. there's nothing in these emails that tells us that's the case, but they clearly see themselves as supporting president trump as a -- future president trump's campaign in their activities. >> and nothing that donald trump jr. wrote back that we have seen suggests that he was not willing to accept that help. we have to sneak in one more break, we're hitting pause, but we'll be right back with a man who hears no evil and sees no evil.

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know, have had concerns about wikileaks over the years. >> and the vice president put out a statement when that story broke yesterday saying the vice president was never aware of anyone associated with the campaign being in contact with wikileaks. what is the vice president doing? >> i don't know. but here's what i'm going to say about wikileaks. one, donald trump would have colluded with the devil itf it helped him beat hillary clinton. assan assange, trump and putin have one thing in common, they want to disassemble western institutions. >> why are we sill have this conversation -- putin, assange and trump all want the same thing, the whole thing needs to move on. the word collusion is diversionary. >> they cooperate, they coordinate, whatever it is, they

are in cahoots. >> they colluded when they had a meeting with the three top officials to receive information, dirt on hillary clinton from the russian government. the question is, was there a criminal conspiracy between the donald trump campaign for president and the russian federation to impact the american election. that's the question. and we're going to find that out as this investigation continues to -- continues to move forward. i just say, and if the reports are true, that the national security advisor has a sideline business plotting for $15 million for his son. >> does that seem like a line? >> that's not my -- >> $15 million, a sideline business to smuggle from the trunk of a car into a private plane someone to turkey. anything's possible. there is no bottom here. whether it is the tax on gold star parents, widows of a green

beret, the degradations to the office are constant, unrelenting and all the while, whether he's calling the north korean dictator fat yesterday, provoking him on twitter, puerto rico continuing to suffer, there's just no bottom to any of it. >> on that uplifting note, we're going to sneak in one more break, when we come back, don't let the door hit you on the way out. we'll go inside the standoff between the gop leadership and the man accused of having sexual activities with teenaged girls.

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don't drive or use machinery until you know how lyrica affects you. those who have had a drug or alcohol problem may be more likely to misuse lyrica. now i have less diabetic nerve pain. ask your doctor about lyrica. accused of obstructing justice to theat the fbinuclear war, and of violating the constitution by taking money from foreign governments and threatening to shut down news organizations that report the truth. if that isn't a case for impeaching and removing a dangerous president, then what has our government become? i'm tom steyer, and like you, i'm a citizen who knows it's up to us to do something. it's why i'm funding this effort to raise our voices together and demand that elected officials take a stand on impeachment. a republican congress once impeached a president for far less. yet today people in congress and his own administration know that this president is a clear and present danger who's mentally unstable and armed with nuclear weapons. and they do nothing.

join us and tell your member of congress that they have a moral responsibility to stop doing what's political and start doing what's right. our country depends on it. your message for roy moore, senator? >> get out. >> he should step aside. number one, these allegations are credible. number two, if he cares about values and the people he claims to care about, then he should step aside. >> if the choice is between a democrat and roy moore, i would choose a democrat. >> if roy moore wins, would you be open to voting to expel -- >> yes, i would. i don't think it will get to that. i don't think he will win. >> republicans speak, and just this hour, roy moore tweeted back, writing alabama ans will

not be fooled by this inside hit job. mitch mcconnell's days as majority leader coming to an end very soon. the fight has just begun. and mcconnell at bat. republican primary, strike one, republican runoff, strike two. three strikes and you are out, mitch. the panel is back. steve schmidt? >> 14-year-old little girl. that's a little kid. this isn't a 17-year-old or a 16-year-old. this is a little girl. this is disgusting behavior. and there are apologists for it. republicans in positions of responsibility elected to the congress of the united states that say, well we'll take the pedophile over the democrat. it is astounding. what i want to see is i want to see a republican member of the united states senate hand out to the media and say this is the motion to expel him that i will

be filing upon his arrival should he win. and he hop he won't win. and there's plenty of decent people in alabama. and let's see if there can be a coalition of republicans and independents and democrats that the democratic candidate can win. but i want to see republicans state affirmatively, he will not serve in the united states senate. we will expel him if he's elected. >> megan let me -- >> i'm sorry. go ahead. >> megan, i want to know if this is just about republicans losing their moral come pass or what steve is talking about a failure of leadership, a fallure of imagination. why can't we innovate our way out of this mess. >> this is someone who republicans should have been condemning long before this behavior was revealed. he holds views about transgender people, views against the lbgtq community that are represehensie for many years. before these allegations broke

he called transgender, said they have no rights, basically said they are not people. now we have a unified chorus of voices from the republican side asking him to step away. that is in contrast to the silence we saw earlier this week when the allegations first broke. >> and you both eloquently on friday -- as a man i was taken of how you educated men of the word. no, no, there is not an if. these women are putting their lives on the line coming forward. and it is -- you know, my daughter is 14. where are we going? not each -- they are just saying step aside. they are not even done democrating him, they are not saying this is a best, an animal, unacceptable for us as human beings. forget politics, parties, who are we this we are not putting us to the precipice of unified rage. can we not agree on one thing in this country, that a grown man shouldn't be fondling a

14-year-old child. >> is there any nuance there? so each now they say he should step aside. how about it's reprehensible. how about it's disgusting, i don't want to be part of the same party of this man. there is no rage anywhere. >> and you look at this woman yesterday, the middle aged woman, and all the pain, the pain, a lifetime of pain. and you think of the 14-year-old little girl. that was the defining moment, probably, of her life. >> personal story will. >> he stole her life. >> yesterday on the phone i was talking to a woman i have known most of my life. she said i never told you this. she told me at 15 how her pediatrician tried to rape her. and she started to -- i heard her voice crack. she says, i feel it now. it stays with you your life. there is a 60-some-0-year-old woman we as people. i want to put it on the men. i could cry. these are our children. >> peter baker, this is a

leadership vacuum that we are i think all sort of bemoaning. i wonder if the white house is prepared to talk to the president about how he might lead his party in this very, very grim hour? >> well, senator mcconnell of course said today that he has spoken with the president about it. but we haven't really heard much from the president. he has been overseas. in asia. he's on his way back now. it's hard to imagine he can avoid commenting for much longer in any kind of death. of course he supported roy moore's opponent in the primary luther strange sort of reluctantly. said he made a mistake in doing society. moore was supported by steve bannon and left the president feeling sort of out the outs with his own populous movement. he has his own sexual harassment allegations that he has had to defend against in the past as well. it is a complicate and tricky issue for him. one that we haven't heard much from him. but i think he has to weigh in. the party wants him to weigh in

and give them direction. you heard the governor of alabama say what does the white house want me to do about this? >> peter brings up a good point, megan, the president is accused of sexual harassment himself. >>way all know what the president said about women, we know the phrase he said about grabbing them and what he said to grab them by. we know the language he used and how he referred to women. this is a problem. i'm glad to hear donnie put it on the women. it does stick to women. we have talked about the experience we have had and the colleagues have had. this is when you stand up and lead. this is stand up to be count right now. every journalist should be asking him exactly where he stands on roy moore and these allegations. >> and mike pence. >> the guy? witness protection. we have to sneak in one more break. we'll be right back.

i could talk to these friends for another four hours, i think i thank peter jeremy, megan, steve, donnie and rick. that does it for our hour. i'm nicole wall as. mtp daily begins right now. congratulations on your win on wednesday. you are still smiling. what is it about college football. >> it's unbelievable. and i know what easy going to be doing at 9:00 tonight. we will be watching shows to find out where they are ranked. >> if it's tuesday, has the white house sprung a wikileak? >> tonight, attorney general jeff ses