congressman john luce, congress woman frederica wilson and eight other democrats so far, possibly more will be boycotting the state of the union address tomorrow night. that is an announcement that i have never made before any other state of the union address. but such as it is in the canal of trump, that's tonight's "last word." "the 11th hour" with brian williams starts now. a party line vote by republicans to release a controversial memo even though justice warned it was reckless. tonight we'll get live reaction

from a member of the house intel committee. plus as the investigators are increasingly under attack, andrew mccabe is out at the fbi. the reporters breaking the news on this story standing by for us with details. and what's it's going to be like when donald trump walks into that chamber tomorrow night as a man under investigation on so many fronts. "the 11th hour" begins now. well, good evening once again from our nbc news headquarters here in new york. day 375 of the trump administration. the extraordinary rift between the white house and federal law enforcement agencies over this russia investigation has grown much wider and to some observers much more dangerous. earlier tonight the house intelligence committee voted along party lines to do what the justice department warned them against. they voted to release a classified memo that republicans say shows the fbi and the justice department improperly

used their surveillance authority in the russia investigation. as our nbc news colleagues ken dilanian and alex johnson write, the vote will, quote, make public a classified memo about some of the government's most sensitive secrets. the democrats on the panel describe the memo as an attack on the mueller investigation. and they say republican members are risking national security to protect this president. >> this committee voted to put the president's personal interest, perhaps their own political interests above the national interest in denying themselves even the ability to hear from the department and the fbi. but it does show how, in my view, when you have a deeply flawed person in the oval office, that flaw can affect the whole of government. and today tragically it infected our committee. >> mr. schiff, the ranking democrat on that committee. that memo is now at the white

house for review. the president has up to five days to block its publication. but that seems unlikely. jennifer jacobs of bloomberg news who joins us in just a moment, reports, quote, the president erupted into anger traveling to davos when steven boyd warned it would be extraordinarily reckless to release a classified memo. just hours before that house intel vote, one of the president's key targets at the fbi, deputy director andrew mccabe, stepped down. mccabe has been under relentless attack from the white house and many republicans on the hill. mccabe was expected to retire soon, but as we learned from "the new york times" and writer matt michael puzo, he told friends that he felt the new fbi director chris wray was pressuring him to leave. mccabe briefly ran the bureau after the president fired his boss, then fbi director james

comey, who learned of his dismissal while he was in los angeles. comey's flight back to washington that we all followed on live television on a gulf stream private jet used by the government became an issue for the president, who according to nbc's carol lee, called mccabe to ask why comey was being allowed to travel on a government plane after being fired. trump also went on to ask mccabe to ask his wife how it felt to be a loser. that's in reference to her loss of a state election in virginia. the campaign for andrew mccabe's dismissal has intensified in recent months. here is the white house reaction to the news that mccabe was indeed stepping down. >> the president wasn't a part of this decision making process, and we would refer you to the fbi, where christopher wray serves as the director, which as i said last week and i'll repeat again today, the president has full confidence in him and has put the decisions at the fbi in

his hands. >> we turn now to our leadoff panel on a monday night. matt apuzzo, no matter what you hear his name is matt apuzzo, an msnbc contributor, and we welcome to our broadcast a former fbi special agent in charge for the agency seattle division where he served under fbi director james comey and reported to, of all people, andrew mccabe. matt, it falls upon you to explain this memo to our audience, what we know about what it includes, and what kind of fix might be in. why all the hubbub surrounding this memo and why the rush to get it out? >> well, this memo concerns surveillance -- a warrant for a surveillance -- sorry, an application for a surveillance warrant that was approved by a surveillance court to listen and eavesdrop on carter page, who at the time was a former campaign

aide to donald trump. and the republicans have seized on this to say this was a political, democratic-driven, you know, overreach of surveillance power by the obama administration to go after political rivals. and this report is apparently going to make that case. and it's going to make the case that some of this information in the application for a warrant came from the dossier, the trump dossier. this is the opposition research that was paid for first by anti-trump republicans and then by hillary clinton. and so that is all tainted. now, look, i would love to see this memo. i'd like to see the whole fisa application, the whole warrant application. the problem is, you can't tell if there was abuses just by looking at a little bit that's been pulled out. and what apparently is happening here, we have republicans who are trying to make the case that this is all a tainted

surveillance, but we're not going to be able to see the whole thing. and the public is not going to be able to make that determination off of this report. that much is clear. >> a subquestion, that this is -- that is to the bill crystal theory, that this is all predicated on the o.j. trial, that this is an effort to cloud up the jury pool and we're all in the jury pool. is this memo going to have impact among the core or the general public? are we going to have people walking the streets of new york, washington, l.a., and texarkana saying, you know, i don't think they followed the right procedure on that fisa warrant? >> right, there's no question that the harder this becomes to understand, the better it ultimately is for republicans and for the white house. the more this is about, well, was the steele dossier information used to predicate a fisa, or was it used to

supplement a fisa warrant -- the more that's the discussion we're having, the less the discussion is about what was the trump campaign ties to russia, was it obstruction of justice? you know, the murkier this is, the better it is for republicans. whether that's their intent, you'd have to ask them. obviously, if you really wanted to have a public discussion about the propriety of using information in a fisa warrant, you will release as much as possible. and as a journalist, i'm all for seeing as much as possible. >> now, jennifer, the president on paper has five days to decide whether to hold it back or release it. i guess he also has the powers of redaction. is there any reason to think that this thing isn't coming out into public glare? >> well, it's possible. so they have several choices. they can decide to essentially block the release. they can decide to okay it and not object to the release. they can redact it further -- black it out more, as you said, or they could decide to

stay silent. if they decide to block it, it would go back to the full house if they redact the release, and i've been told it's very unlikely if the president of the united states blocks the release of the memo, that the full house would then vote to override that decision. so if they decide to block the release, then theoretically it might not appear, it might not be released. >> and jennifer, we saw schiff come out. and schiff said that in their meeting today, they pleaded, the democrats did, and the minority, for the minority remarks about this to come out. everything they wanted to say to counter the points in this edited memo, that's been rejected until this memo comes out. would something like that be leaked and find its way to the public domain anyway? >> well, one would hope not. if it contains classified information, you would hope it would not be leaked. and this is part of the reason why the intelligence community was willing to share this information. they allowed members of congress to view classified documents,

about a thousand pages, and gather the information that was used to write these dueling memos. and the reason they showed it to them because they trusted them not to release it to the public or pull shenanigans that would compromise the sources or methodology in these documents. >> now, frank, to you, and we appreciate you very much for coming in. >> sure. >> as a veteran of the bureau, what's it been like to watch? comey's been fired. the president has been attacking a career civil servant over his twitter account for the world to see, and today we learned that mr. mccabe is stepping down. what do you think the mechanism was? do you think this was truly his decision as long as he got his retirement benefits, which he has worked hard to earn? >> and he's a great guy. stellar pro, really lives up to his oath every single day. and i think ultimately he just got tired of being dragged through the mud. and i mean this is a guy who's a professional law enforcement and intelligence officer.

this is a guy who has dedicated the last two decades of his life to public service. and through no fault of his own, he's been dragged through this partisan mud. and i think it just got to the point where it's just not worth it anymore, and he had the opportunity to leave. rather than accept a relegation to another role, and he took it, because that's what his -- that's who andy mccabe is. and i think it was an act of principle on his part. >> what's it been like for you to watch the partisan stuff surrounding this? the notion that it may be a liberal cesspool of people wanting to bring down donald trump. when the joke at the fbi was, for decades, you can wear any shirt you want to work, as long as it's white or blue. it hardly has a liberal reputation. >> what is it, lewis carol of "looking glass"? it's an alternate universe that's upside down.

and every day you alternate between frustration and outrage. to see a great organization staffed by many, many outstanding americans, men and women both, who have to be dragged through this process simply for doing their jobs, for conducting investigations. not just this one but around the country. >> around the world. >> around the world for that matter, and then have to be subject to these kinds of insults. because this is more than just an attack on andrew mccabe or on jim comey or even on pete strauk. this is about attacking the people who make up the fbi because everyone of them represents the fbi. nge i -- >> i want to ask our control room to get what comey said on twitter up on the screen. and while we do that, matt, talk to me about the pressure mccabe was feeling. the pressure he's been under. special agent andrew mccabe stood tall over the last eight months when small people were trying to tear down an institution we all depend on. he served with distinction for

two decades. i wish andy well and i also wish continued strength for the fbi. america needs you. so the former director appealing right there to the rank and file. matt, talk about the pressure on andrew mccabe. >> anybody with a twitter account could see what the pressure was on andrew mccabe from the president's own tweets. he's basically been taunting him for some time. now, there is an inspector general investigation going on in the justice department that's reviewing comey's handling of the clinton investigation, mccabe whether he should have recused himself because his wife was running for state senate as a democrat and took some money from clinton-connected democrats. and look, all that's going to come out. and i think the feeling in the fbi today from people i talked to and my colleague adam goldman talked to, was just a sense of whether you like andrew mccabe or you don't like andrew mccabe, the president whenever he starts mucking around in bureau affairs, it gets dicey. now, the problem here is chris

wray and a new fbi director. and a new fbi director would be expected to pick his own deputy and chief of staff and his own council. but it makes it harder for him to do that when the president goes in and is seemingly calling the shots. >> yeah, this is the kind of organic natural turnover that would have happened, but now it's all cloaked in this. jennifer, we've been talking about the pressure put on mccabe. let's talk about your reporting today, the pressure writ large, being applied on the department of justice. >> right, so the president was traveling to davos when he was able to focus on the news that had just broken, about this letter from a top doj official to the house intelligence committee, urging them not to release the memo, saying it would be reckless to do so. the president's frustration boiled over. he'd had a long week of frustration with the department of justice. i've been told he has a bit of a

preoccupation with the department of justice and its inner workings and has been very critical of what they do. at the beginning of the week he was critical of department of justice officials for failing to find these e-mails that could have shown some sort of bias. and he called in jeff sessions and wray into the white house on monday to talk to them about finding these text messages, later in the week on tuesday, sessions was back in the west wing. on wednesday kelly sat down again with justice department officials about various things. things came out during these conversations in which both trump and chief of staff john kelly said, listen, you've got to live up to expectations. you've got to really work here. you need to be great or you're going to go down in history as being some of the worst at your jobs in history. so really laid down the line of what they expect of them and how they want them to be handling their jobs. so it was a long week of frustrations.

and then when this letter from the doj was sent saying don't release the memo, i was just told that the president and other white house officials were just thinking, is this justice department trying to undercut us again? what is their motivation here? are they trying to hide something? are they trying to protect someone? trump on air force one setoff a kind of chain of events where various people from the white house were calling their counterparts from the department of justice saying what's happening here, and don't overreach and keep in mind that you are really not a part of this decision to release this memo. >> frank, i have 15 whole seconds for a last word. and that is for all the fbi agents tonight who are working a 4 to 12, serving a warrant or worse, do you have any worries about the rank and file holding together and keeping their heads down and doing their jobs? >> absolutely none. there are total pros.

just like andy and jim. it really is, it's a good thing they're out dispersed around the 56 fields and offices around the world because that's where they should be. and we'll weather this. we've weathered other crises before. this one is a little different and intense. but the country is in good hands. the fbi is a great institution. it has the interests, the best interests of this country at heart. and every one of them will live up to their oath and defend and protect. >> i keep saying wait until the country needs them in a big way, and this debate will change dramatically. thank you all very much. more on that partisan vote tonight from house intel when we continue, as we approach our first break. we'll get reaction from california democratic congressman eric swalwell of house intel. plus, the russian shadow hanging over the state of the union address, trump's first as president.

we're just getting started on a monday night. my "business" was going nowhere... so i built this kickin' new website with godaddy. building a website in under an hour is easy! 68% of people... ...who have built their website using gocentral, did it in... ...under an hour, and you can too. type in your business or idea. pick your favourite design. personalize it with beautiful images. and...you're done! and now business is booming. harriet, it's a double stitch not a cross stitch! build a better website - in under an hour. free to try. no credit card required. gocentral from godaddy.

ythen you turn 40 ande everything goes. tell me about it. you know, it's made me think, i'm closer to my retirement days than i am my college days. hm. i'm thinking... will i have enough? should i change something? well, you're asking the right questions. i just want to know, am i gonna be okay? i know people who specialize in "am i going to be okay." i like that. you may need glasses though. yeah. schedule a complimentary goal planning session today with td ameritrade.

we're back with more on this breaking news tonight involving both the house intelligence committee's vote to release a controversial memo disparaging the fbi. with us to talk about what happened today california democrat, current member of house intel, congressman eric swalwell. congressman, you said earlier this afternoon on this network that this memo should never see the light of day. and i want to ask a question

that sounds flip, but it's not intended to be. what's the worse that could happen? >> good evening, brian. the worse that could happen is it would falsely poison the well of public opinion of the rule of law, of the independence that we are supposed to have at the fbi. you know, people ask me, you know, what's the big deal about this? in first world democracies you don't attack the police when they're investigating you, and you don't use them to attack your enemies. and this is falsely attacking the fbi to protect the president. it's a line that we just cannot cross, and i'm still hopeful that we don't go there, but i think we're as close as we've ever been. >> i know you're not able to speak to the contents of the memo. it's the point of the argument. but if you're able to even if it calls for speculation, what's at work here? why is this being pushed out? what's it toward? >> i've read both memos, the republican one that will go to the public as early as tomorrow and the democratic one that they've prevented the public from seeing.

what this does is it really seriously discredits bob mueller and his investigation by putting out facts just not supported by the evidence. it's a brainwashing of the public, brian. and again what it risks is that it also has a collateral effect of the rest of the line, fbi agents who you referenced during the night, they have to go to courts tomorrow and put warrants and affidavits forward on money laundering cases, corruption cases. on terrorism cases. and if their credibility is undermined by this, that's going to affect their ability to do their job. >> another question i asked in the first discussion, turns out we really need the fbi? god forbid a thousand times if the president is briefed on a domestic terrorist plot in this country, and it works to his advantage, some reform he's trying to get, something he's trying to get through, does he need to stop and say, no, this

time we're serious? this is really an fbi product? >> and you can't have it both ways. you can't say that, you know, career officials like andrew mccabe and others are corrupt but those who work for them are not when it serves your purposes. and brian, i also want to go back to our memo and say the one they prevented the public from seeing is a ten-page painstaking rebuttal that relied upon actual facts, highly sensitive facts that not only rebut what the republicans will be putting forward to the public but will open the door to new evidence that i think will give even greater credibility to the work being done at the fbi. and so if the republicans truly cared about transparency, they would release the counter memo that corrects the record and puts all of this rightfully into focus. >> eric swalwell, congressman after a long day we appreciate you staying up with us.

>> my pleasure. >> thank you very much. and coming up after a break, chris matthews is here. we'll talk about the news of the day tonight and preview the state of the union.

get your bathroom super bowl ready with febreze. breathe happy. renein the caribbean.onder for a limited time enjoy two free perks like complimentary wifi and drinks, plus savings up to $300 when you book now during the celebrity cruises sail beyond event.

renein the caribbean.onder for a limited time enjoy two free perks like complimentary wifi and drinks, plus savings up to $300 when you book now during the celebrity cruises sail beyond event. it's not every day that our friend chris matthews is with us here in new york. so we naturally asked him to stop by and react to today's news and predict to some of tomorrow's. you know him as the host of "hardball," but also the author

of the best-seller, "bobby kennedy: a raging spirit." joe kennedy iii, when we're back in this room tomorrow night, we'll be talking about joe kennedy iii, as my late mother would say, a face like the map of jirireland. he's going to give a democratic response. >> look at him. he looks like he could be a british royal, too. but they want somebody from the future. they want somebody from the strong future. they want somebody from the past. they want to go back to their roots and they want to talk about hope in the future. they didn't want to put one of their presidentials out there. i talked to joe crowley, one of the leaders today. by the way, this is serious candidate. maybe not in his own words, but there are people out there pushing him for 2020. believe it or not, people like lou sussman, the people that pushed barack obama to give this speech in 2004, are pushing him. so this is serendipity he was picked by the leadership. but i'll tell you, everybody likes him. in fact, i've met two politicians in my life who

said "call me by my first name." one of them is this guy. it's very rare in politics to say just call me joe. i think it works with him. he's giving a speech, by the way, for working people. going back to the roots of the party, fall river technical school, that's where he's going to give the speech tomorrow night, responding to trump. >> you said something on your broadcast tonight that got our attention. you called the sum total of today's developments, where we stand, a slow motion saturday night massacre. why? >> because he's purging one person after another. trump is giving away his motive, which is really i think obstruction. he got rid of comey because comey was doing the russia investigation. and today he pushed out mccabe. he's clearly going after rosenstein now, the deputy attorney general. he clearly wants to get rid of

anyone involved in his prosecution. to me it's prima facie. >> he may not have the knowledge to realize sometimes it's the -- -- it's the devil you know, that career civil servants are replaced by career civil servants in many cases, lawyers by lawyers and prosecutors by prosecutors. >> i agree. he goes after the deep state at the same taime he makes it personal. he wants to decapitate, i suppose, the deep state. he's going for both. >> you're a speechwriter. i am guessing that if i gave you the assignment to write tomorrow's state of the union, you might pull an all-nighter, but you would emerge with a nifty speech written, that if he stays to prompter, would be a terrific speech as delivered. the way i look at it if he does tax bill, the economy, wall street, infrastructure, jobs and stays to that, he could deliver -- >> you know how beautiful movie stars always play the sort of tough part like the monster of the movie?

monster or charlize theron, or that margot robbie plays. i think trump will play against type tomorrow night. i think he will play a very solid jerry ford, kind of day-to-day government servant and everybody will be impressed by that tomorrow night. everybody will say, it was wonderful how he stuck to the teleprompter and how he didn't go off-script. >> that's the bar for tomorrow. >> and we'll be sitting over here and talking about it. and i hope we're not taken with that, because i think that's an embarrassment for our society. that a man can read a prompter and is seen as a statesman. but he will do that. it will be his way of sticking it to his critics, like i can be a gentlemen if i want to be a gentleman. >> do you agree with the following statement. no president has entered the house chamber to deliver his rookie year state of the union

address, with his presidency in this much peril? >> no, i think the idea -- to me, there are three rings in this circus. one's the economy. give him credit. nobody's been this lucky, successful, deregulating like mad, unleashing the tax cut to give more stimulus to it, and we'll be paying for it years later. and the second is his show that goes on every day. and he'll be tweeting out in the morning, right after this speech no matter how it well goes over he'll be tweeting wednesday morning. and that show has been dispiriting to the american people. they're in their 30s. 65% roughly of the country doesn't like this show. and the third ring is the russian probe, which is going relentlessly, mechanically forward. we've noticed in the last couple days this old polaroid film developing in front of our eyes, and we're seeing obstruction. whether the house of representatives, paul ryan, move

on it, who knows? but it's clear they're going to put the case before the american people. i think robert mueller would do that. and i think it's coming before us. >> he does like the show, i think someone said tonight that could drop this house memo while he's delivering the state of the union. >> he's good at that. and that is the reality tv show that the american people are asking not to be re-upped. >> always a pleasure when you come by. >> thank you. >> chris matthews will be a big part of our state of the union coverage tomorrow night. fans of "hardball" may be overwhelmed by the news there will be two broadcasts tomorrow night. the first at 7:00 p.m. eastern, the second at midnight. >> i never know when you're kidding. >> you may want to premedicate. chris will book-end the state of the union here on msnbc. i think of hollywood glitter. >> you can stick around for a few minutes. >> we'll see you tomorrow night, my friend. coming up, the background and backdrop for tomorrow night's speech. why we have never been here

before. in fact it's not even close, when "the 11th hour" continues. ♪ cleaning floors with a mop and bucket is a hassle, meaning you probably don't clean as often as you'd like. for a quick and convenient clean, try swiffer wetjet. there's no heavy bucket, or mop to wring out, because the absorb and lock technology traps dirt and liquid inside the pad. it's safe to use on all finished surfaces tile, laminate and hardwood. and it prevents streaks and hazing better than a micro fiber strip mop, giving you a thorough clean the first time. for a convenient clean, try swiffer wetjet with a money back guarantee. brand power. helping you buy better.

hi, i'm the internet! you knoarmless bowling.lt? you got this, jimmy! you know what's easy? building your website with godaddy. pick a domain name. choose a design. you can build a website in under an hour. now that's a strike!

get your domain today and get a free trial of gocentral. build a better website in under an hour. i love you. as i mentioned in the last segment, no president has entered the house chamber to give his first state of the union address as president with his presidency in this much peril. numerous reports say lawyers are actively negotiating back and forth what form trump's interview with prosecutors might take. trump will also be addressing a body that has multiple active investigations under way into russian interference in this past election and possible obstruction of justice. our friends at "the washington post" put it this way. "it will be an incongruous picture the american public sees tuesday night, a divisive chief executive who has discarded countless norms, performing one

of the most traditional of presidential rituals, an hour or so during which uninterrupted and unfiltered he can claim ownership for his accomplishments and set an agenda for the year ahead." we are fortunate tonight to be joined by three of our favorites. robert acosta, moderator of washington week on pbs and an msnbc political contributor. kim ber lea atkins, chief washington reporter for the boston herald and msnbc contributor. and john heilemann back with us. an msnbc national affairs analyst. greetings to you all. kim, is it possible, would it seem in character if portions of tomorrow night's speech had a bipartisan reach, a bipartisan goal, a lofty reach across the aisle, kind of who's with me spirit? >> yeah, that will fall into that sort of traditional state of the union that you're talking about.

and that is what the white house is saying the president wanted to do tomorrow to strike a conciliatory tone and talk about bipartisanship and unity moving forward as he, of course, touts his own record and pitches other agenda items like infrastructure. but it's going to be really hard to do at a time given everything that is so unusual about this presidency and nontraditional. you have a host of lawmakers protesting, boycotting the event altogether based on the comments the president's made. you now have this house intelligence committee kerfuffle over this memo that will likely be released in days. you have the government could possibly shut down in ten days if they don't come to a

resolution, which they don't seem any closer to doing. and you have all this sitting on top of the state of the union. even if the president reads from the teleprompter like chris was talking about, it doesn't give that same sense of, hey, we're turning a corner here. >> robert costa, take a look backwards one year. how consuming has the subject of all things russia been? >> it has been all consuming on capitol hill to a large extent. but it's not the reason exactly for this legislative stall. you're going to see this year a real lack of movement based on my report on some of these key issues like infrastructure, moving forward on any kind of economic program, an immigration deal that's comprehensive. because there are political fault lines that are deeply embedded in the political culture, and especially in congress. and the russia investigation hangs over all of these divisions as a cloud. and that makes things even harder to get, and it sharpens

the partisanship, we saw that just today. >> john, on the winston churchill scale of "we will fight them on the beaches," where is the bar set for this president's delivery of said speech tomorrow night? >> i don't know. i really think there's so much now in the ether, this motion, to your point looking back a year ago and trump's incredibly divisive early days, and he gives his speech and people applied the normal pundity metrics to it. and saying that was rousing and inspirational, and trying to pull the country together or the parties together. and now we've now had a year in which there was no relation of that speech to how trump governed, how he behaviored, the russia probe, and so much else that has occurred. i think people are now pretty wised up to the question of whether we should be judging the

president by sort of the normal metrics. so i think people are going to be looking at through the window you're looking at it, brian, which is say this is an extraordinary thing. it's more extraordinary than when nixon gave his state of the union and he was under investigation for watergate. this is in some ways more encompassing than watergate. it's a domestic abuse of power investigation and also the greatest policy scandal of our times. and so everyone goes into this with a pretty gimlet eye. >> kim, to pick up on your very last point, because the air is so charged and everything is so fraught his people, i'm sure, are hoping to get the speech on the prompter as delivered. they get into trouble -- the president gets into trouble when he employs kind of sentence helpers, greater than ever before, a couple of "believe mes" and then fills the space between lines on the prompter, that's where

rhetorically he's gotten into trouble. >> yes, i think we will see that. look, he's less likely to do those little quirks when he's in a more controlled environment, like the house chamber will be tomorrow night. it's not like when he's at a rally and feeding off the energy of the room and he goes off script. and that's where we see more of that. i'm sure the script writers will avoid putting words like little to keep him from finishing that sentence about little rocket man or things like that. i think for the most part we have seen this president give controlled speeches and manage to read a teleprompter for a period of time. it's a longer speech this time that we're seeing, than, for example, his address in davos. so there's always a potential that we will ad-lib a bit, especially if there's some negative reaction coming from lawmakers tomorrow night. there's a possibility for that. but i think for the most part this is going to be one of those controlled teleprompter addresses. >> hey, robert, before i sneak a

break in, a question about policy and this memo. your understanding of this argument, is mi6 going to read this thing in the public domain and say, this is the last time we ever share intel with the yanks, are people going to be debating this memo in the streets, or are people going to view it as a shiny object? >> i spoke a couple of hours ago with adam schiff, and he said christopher wray, the fbi director, advised him earlier today to not move forward tory -- forward to release this memo. he urged people on the house intelligence committee to follow that plan. that didn't happen, of course. they decided to release this memo to the public in the coming days. and now you see people in the intelligence community and law enforcement community they wonder if this intelligence is so susceptible to being released to the public, it could raise questions in those different orbits. two prongs when we come back

after a quick break. our guests will stay with us. new reporting on the russia front, and new reporting in "the new york times" about the first lady's role tomorrow night. that right after this.

the state of the union address is still most of a day away and they are already dealing with their first crisis. that would be the state of the uniom, the misspelling was discovered with enough time to get them reprinted. this one is not on the white house, rather on the house of representatives. it's their chamber after all. it was announced today the first lady will be in attendance tomorrow night. all eyes have been on her of late since the reports first surfaced that her husband had an

affair with a porn star. she pulled out of the davos trip. she then went to the holocaust museum in washington alone before flying to florida unannounced via air force jet. so tomorrow night will be her first major public appearance since the porn star story first came to light. "the new york times" reporting it like this tonight. quote, the reports of a payoff blind-sided the first lady. who was furious with her husband, according to people familiar with the couple. she has kept a low profile since. the uncertainty over mrs. trump's appearance was in contrast to her willingness to show up and support mr. trump in the past. our guests remain with us. robert costa, kimberley atkins, john heilemann. kimberly, this is uncomfortable, but it is the state of the trump marriage and thus is news. >> you know, the state of the union is probably one of the most high profile events for the first ladies.

we've seen past first ladies. they are there, they usually get the biggest applause of anyone in attendance. they're usually there with a special guest, whether it's a member of the military or someone involved in one of the causes that they work for. so it is an important event for her. we have seen her take her role as first lady very seriously. so i'm not surprised that she is going to be there. but, yes, look, as reporters we are talking about things like the fact that there was a pay-off before the election. that's a news worthy event. but for this first lady, i can't imagine how difficult it is to deal with something like that at all, let alone in the public glare. so i'm inclined to let her choose for herself and her son how she handles that privately. >> we have heard what we heard from this president on videotape. we have seen video of his hand batted away in an unambiguous

way. this is uncomfortable. what has the white house had to say about it? >> well, i always decline to speculate on any marriage because these are intensely private things. i will say having covered the first lady when she was on the campaign trail in 2015 and 2016, this is a woman who is very private. all conversations she used to have with reporters were usually about her parents or her son or maybe something she was doing on the campaign trail. very little else. this is not someone who would come as natural to the position of first lady in terms of an outsized public role. so it's somewhat not surprising for people who know her inside of the white house to see that a year in she's not perhaps based on all of this reporting, loving the position. even though they hesitate to say much more because she relishes her privacy. >> and john heilemann because of so many other shiny objects that didn't make it on the air tonight, washington, associated press. the trump administration has

decided not to punish anybody for now, under new sanctions, retaliating for russia's election meddling. it's a surprising move from the state department. what do you make of it? >> well, let's just review for the sake of history here. russia intervened in the america election in 2016. the united states government determined that. there's a consensus on that view. as a result of that the united states congress passed sanctions against russia over the objections of the trump administration. as part of those sanctions the trump administration was now supposed to slap penalties on people or companies that were doing business with the russian defense or intelligence agencies. there are people who have been doing that kind of business, and now the administration is declining to do what it is supposed to do, under that law that it objected to being passed in the first place. this will for anyone who thinks that donald trump or his administration are in bed with vladimir putin, are too soft on russia, this will be another exhibit in a long list of exhibits that will point to this and say we passed that law, you were supposed to implement it, you are now giving them a pass.

that's what's happened here. >> that's the subject we will end tonight's broadcast or at least this conversation on. with our thanks to robert costa, kimberley atkins and john heilemann. another break is ahead for us. and coming up, the drive to keep going despite setbacks it is part of this day in history. we'll explain.

last thing before we go here tonight is about space. this past weekend upon hearing of a grim anniversary americans of a certain age might have remembered the tragedy that almost derailed our mission to the moon. 51 years ago astronauts grissom white and chaffy were going through their february launch while a spark ignited their capsule and set on the pad. and in an instant three of our best and brightest were gone. mistakes were made by nasa, and tragic as it was, we did not let it stop us on our way to the moon. yesterday was the 32nd anniversary of the shuttle challenger explosion. a searing day for those of us alive to see it on television. because watching that explosion we knew we were watching seven people die. among them, krista mcauliffe, we

were watching as her students watched her in new hampshire. we watched as her parents witnessed the florida launch and seemed to understand that nasa -- what nasa meant in the moment, when mission control described it as obviously a major malfunction. mistakes were made on the challenger mission, and importantly we did not let it stop our exploration of space. and now there are reports that a draft budget calls for stopping the u.s. funding for the international space station by the year 2025. that might be a slightly unsettling thought to the six brave humans who at this very moment going over 200 miles up, streaking around the earth at 17,000 miles an hour. they are, when you think about it, the only citizens of earth who are not living here on earth. and some believe the international space station emphasis on international could go on. even if the u.s. pulls out. in other words, those who feel

space exploration is essential cannot let it stop them. that is our broadcast for tonight. thank you so much for being here with us. i'll see you back here from this very studio tomorrow graduates are ready to vote overwhelmingly for the democratic candidates for congress. that's another hole trump has dug himself into. right now it looks like a modest democratic victory in the house