of florida is george w. bush. and is congratulations, sir. >> stephen colbert gets tonight's "last word." "the 11th hour with brian williams" starts now. tonight another senate race has been called. the democrats have picked up jeff flake's senate seat in minnesota. there is a recount where the president is saying it's voter fraud, though there's no voter fraud. plus the new acting attorney general matt whitaker at least asked about the ethics of his new oversight duties, as we learn that robert mueller may have another indictment looming. and a staggering american sacrifice. it was a lonely president in france this weekend as our country has now been set apart from the rest, as "the 11th

hour" gets underway on a monday night. and as we start a new week, good evening once again from our nbc news headquarters here in new york. day 662 of the trump administration. it is already clear the pace of news this week is going to be little different from last. as we come on the air tonight, we're going to begin with some breaking news just 21 minutes old. the story has just come out in the past half hour regarding the trump administration. the "washington post" is reporting president trump has told advisers he's decided to remove kirsten nielsen as homeland security secretary, and her departure, according to the post, is likely to occur in the coming weeks. on the phone is one of the three by lines who broke this story tonight, phil rucker for the "washington post." phil, we know this has been a long time developing. a slow run-up, she is an acolyte

of general kelly, but what did this, apparently? >> reporter: well, brian, the president has just decided, according to officials in the white house, that it's time for her to go. she is nearing her one-year mark on the job. that would be december 6th, but the president told aides over the weekend that he wanted her out very soon. he actually had a trip planned with secretary nielsen sometime this week to visit troops at the border in south texas and he decided to cancel that trip, according to officials, and has been grumbling about her for months. it's been previously reported that he berated her at a cabinet meetingme meeting. he had spoken poorly about her behind her back, and i think it's time to go. it's also worth pointing out, brian, this is a little bit mutual. nielsen has been frustrated in the job herself and she's been thinking about leaving at some point, although clearly this is

going to be the president's decision. >> of course, the job could not be more important, among other things, fortifying our electronics grid, fortifying our computers against ongoing and sustained attack from the russians, among others. and so, phil, this will be another senate confirmation of another nominee. >> reporter: it would be. one thing we should point out to the viewers at home, just a caveat, sometimes the president will tell his advisers he's made a decision and then change his mind once it gets covered in the media. so he could fall back on this. and chief of staff kelly is trying to save her job. he's trying to postpone her dismissal. but we should also point out that kelly's own future at the administration is considered

shaky with some white house officials saying he may not be long for this world, either. >> it's tough to see how she will want to say -- want to stay, rather, looking at some of the language you've reported out from your reporting sources in the story tonight. phil rucker, again, one of three names on the byline, the "washington post" breaking the story in the last half hour that kirstjen nielsen, the president is preparing to remove her as secretary of homeland security. phil, thanks. back to this unending midterm election of 2018. we have more news on that front just out tonight. nbc news has declared democratic congresswoman kyrsten sinema as the apparent winner in the arizona senate race, giving her a narrow victory over republican congresswoman martha mcsally. sinema now makes history as the first woman senator from that state and more history because she has turned jeff flake's

republican senate seat blue, and sinema reacted a short time ago. >> it won't be easy, and it won't happen overnight. but we can work together to meet the challenges our country faces. we can do this differently for our country, for our future, for senator mccain, and for each other. i think we must. thank you. >> earlier this evening, mcsally, flanked by a close friend, posted her own statement, her concession. >> i just called kirsten sinema and congratulated her on becoming the first woman senator. i wish her all the best as she represents the senate. >> and the recount in the races for governor and senate in florida. some counties are running machines 24 hours a day, trying to process the more than 8

million votes cast by the thursday deadline. this year invokes memories of nearly 40 years ago, a sometimes comical recount that ended when the supreme court awarded the presidency to president george w. bush. bill nelson for the senate, ron desantis against andrew gillum for senator. while both may have been called by news organizations, the elections need to be certified by the states. tonight the republicans, scott and desantis, hold narrow leads in their respective races. today trump who campaigned for both men weighed in on social media. quote, the florida election should be called in favor of rick scott and ron desantis in that large numbers of new ballots showed up out of nowhere, and many ballots are missing or forged. an honest vote count is no longer possible.

ballots massively infected. must go with election night. there is no evidence to support what the president says there. there is zero evidence of voter fraud the president is talking about, and going with an election night count of ballots would disenfranchise, for starters, votes sent in from floridians serving in the military stationed overseas on veterans day weekend, no less. while normally candidates don't interfere in recounts, rick scott of florida is trying to. he's the sitting governor who was attacking the count and his opponent hard because this would make him a u.s. senator. >> bill nelson is clearly a sore loser. he can't stand the fact that he's not going to be elected for the first time in decades. and he won't -- he's just here to steal this election. his lawyer came down here and said, i'm here to win the election. i'm not here to get a free and fair election and make sure votes are counted. no, he wants to win the

election. that's his only purpose. >> the incumbent, the former astronaut and long-time democratic senator bill nelson has fired back accusing scott of trying to suppress votes. >> one fact is that rick scott isn't interested in making sure every lawful vote is counted. and the second is that he's using his power as governor to try to undermine the voting process. he's thrown around words like voter fraud without any proof. he should remove himself from any role in the recount process so the people can have the confidence in the integrity of the election. >> again, and for the record, florida authorities say there is no evidence of voter fraud and there is no investigation into possible voter fraud. there are, however, multiple lawsuits being filed over this recount, including one from rick scotto impound voting machines and ballots. today a florida judge ruled against that request and issued

his own warning to both sides. >> i'm urging, because of the highly public nature of this case, to camp doramp down the r. >> with all that, let's go back to the big board because the midterms will never end. our national correspondent steve kornacki back with us tonight, and steve, i understand since we've been talking we have breaking news on the georgia governor front. >> yeah, you got the florida senate situation here, but i am going to jump over and tell you what we know in georgia right now. here is the situation. brian kemp, the republican, right now he's declared victory, but the question is does that 50.3%, his share of the vote, does that go under 50%? that would trigger a runoff, that could trigger a recount. the atlanta journal constitution is reporting just in the last few minutes that a federal judge has ordered the state of georgia

to delay certifying this gubernatorial election. the state of georgia had been planning to do that tomorrow. all counties were to have their counts finalized, submitted to the state. the state then due to certify it. the atlanta journal constitution, and we're trying to find out more about it, but the atlanta journal constitution is telling us the federal judge has said this must be delayed now until friday at 5:00 p.m. and the reason for that, again, according to the journal constitution is that the lawsuit deals with provisional ballots that were not accepted, provisional ballots that currently are not part of the count here in georgia. we know the provisional ballots are overwhelmingly favoring stacey abrams. if there is a different standard that's applied here, if there is more latitude given to these counties in terms of trying to verify this voter counted this provisional ballot, that could potentially expand the pool by thousands of provisional ballots that are part of this count. and that could potentially, on top of whatever else was going to be counted between today and

tomorrow, that could potentially -- we don't know, but potentially bring that number down for brian kemp into that range where the abrams camp needs it. we're going to find out more about this. we want to see this ruling, read it exactly for ourselves, but what we're being told from the atlanta journal constitution in just the last couple minutes is that the federal judge has said three more days, at least, before certifying this election, and that the reason is these provisional ballots the abrams camp is trying and hoping to get included potentially in the count. that's the significant development there. you mentioned florida as well. that is where the machine recount is now underway. if the machine recount shows a similar result, then this senate race is going to head to a manual recount. there is one giant issue, i think, looming in this right now. you look at the difference between these candidates. it is 12,562 votes right now for rick scott. here is that big issue. it's in broward county. hugely democratic, nelson getting 70% of the vote almost

here. 26,000 fewer votes were cast in the senate race than in the governors' race here. that is a disparate not even approached in any other county in the state. something is up in broward. the nelson campaign is saying this is a machine reading issue, that there are tens of thousands of votes that nelson's probably winning disproportionately. a manual recount if that's the case would catch that, but the other possibility here is that the design of the ballot played a role here. the design of this ballot in broward county, you can see the senate race here. it's buried under a long column of instructions. there were parts of the county where there wasn't even a house race under it. the federal agency that advises states on how to design and develop their ballots has specifically told states not to do this because in their test and in their studies, voters would miss sometimes a race located here on the ballot. so if it is a machine error like the nelson camp is talking

about, you are talking about a major development that could eat significantly, maybe entirely, into that lead that rick scott has right now. if it is a ballot design issue, a very different story. >> steve, maybe in time for our grandchildren someday, we will fix elections in this country and in all 50 states. we thank you so very much for starting us off at the big board, steve kornacki. let's bring in our lead-off panel on a monday night into this conversation. jackie coms is back with us, editor of the national times. and annie, white house reporter for plitt co. annie, i want to start with the vote in arizona. you have jeff flake who wore facially the weight of the world, the torture he went through during the kavanaugh mess right before agreeing to send it through, and then you have donald trump campaigning in

arizona. we had that marauding caravan en route north. >> one thing that sinema's republican challenger did not do was to raise questions about voter fraud the way other republicans have done in close races. the rnc and the white house pressured her, pressured mcsally to raise these issues, and she wouldn't do it. there was some frustration with her for not going that route. one reason she might not have wanted to go that route is because there is potentially another senate seat open for her. the replacement for john mccain, kyle may not want to serve out his full term and she could have a seat waiting for her. that's one thing that's been speculated about her very nice and moderate tone tonight, her unwillingness to go voter fraud route is because she has another chance at this. but this race was different from what we're seeing in florida for that reason. >> so, jackie, if you stick

around long enough, you run the risk of people asking you what it was like back then, and you and i are both able to talk about the florida recount almost 20 years ago. one thing we didn't have then was one of the candidates and the president of the united states trying to diminish the integrity of the process. >> well, that's right. bill clinton as president, of course, wanted his vice president al gore to win. but he was never heard from throughout the long recount in that december of 2000. and, you know, that was -- and nobody questioned that. he was expected to be quiet and that's what makes -- you know, this is just yet another norm that donald trump has broken, but it's, in fact, one of the biggest norms he's breaking because undermining our democratic process, our elections, is just undermining democracy itself.

it really has undercut people's trust in elections. and you don't have to believe me, you can believe that judge in florida that you showed, judge jack tudor, who is, in fact, a republican appointee. he was appointed by jeb bush to that florida court. and today he is admonishing the parties for the rhetoric. what he didn't say, the rhetoric is coming from the republican side when it comes to talking about election fraud. that, you know, he said they are undermining voters' trust in the election. >> annie, what did we hear from donald trump going back to the start of the campaign? it's rigged, folks, the election is rigged, the system is rigged. he loves talking about voter fraud. he alleged there were 3 million cases of voter fraud in the last campaign. this does, as they say, fit nicely with his narrative.

>> i don't think, knowing what donald trump says, shouldn shoue as a surprise that he raised these issues. he claimed there was voter fraud in new hampshire, a state he lost in 2016. his former campaign manager, corwin lewandowski, came out and said, i never saw any of this, it's not true. so we're seeing a bit of a preview, also, i've heard democrats say, this is very worrisome, because what's it going to look like when trump is trailing in the polls in 2020? what's he going to do? what's he going to claim? what apparatuses of government he now controls will he put into motion to swing the race in his favor? another thing we're seeing is a bit of a do loop. if you track trump's tweets on this, they track very closely with governor scott's appearance on sean hannity's program on fox

news where he started to claim that liberals were trying to steal it is electiothe election tweets came soon after that. you could also say the governor watched sean hannity and knew what trump wanted to hear and told him what he wanted to hear and he went with it. it is unprecedented for a president to speak like this and to get involved, but when it comes to trump, i don't think there is very much surprise at issue. he started the voter fraud commission. it's an issue he likes to bring up when the results don't go in his favor. >> and jackie, here we are perhaps at the expense of arlington or walter reid. the president seems obsessed with the florida race. >> a lot of people were shocked that he didn't go to arlington. i can't remember a president who didn't go to arlington national cemetary on veterans day. and there is no explanation why.

it did rain today but it wasn't raining earlier in the morning, and this comes two days after he skipped a visit to the american cemetary in france that he was scheduled to visit as a commemoration of the end of world war i 100 years ago. so it's actually inexplicable considering that donald trump has sort of wrapped himself in the cloak of veterans and bragging about his administration's solicitude toward veterans. they're really no explanation for it. >> jackie and annie, thank you for this this evening. we talk about the investigation's future. and a confrontation getting underway in washington as the 115th congress is about to get

underway for the 116th. "the 11th hour" getting started on a monday night. he 11th hour" on a monday night. (chime) - [narrator] meet shark's newest robot vacuum. it powerfully cleans from floors to carpets, even pet hair, with ease, and now for cleaning surfaces above the floor, it comes with a built in shark handheld. one dock, two sharks. the shark ion robot cleaning system.

this is a lot but it's important. we're tracking important developments in the mueller investigation as criticism is mounts over the new acting attorney general matt whitaker's role in overseeing the special counsel. earlier today roger stone associate jerome corsi tells nbc news he expects to be indicted by mueller. he told nbc, quote, i don't recall ever meeting julian

assange or getting information from anyone about what he had including the podesta e-mails, corsi said tuesday. but they have all your e-mails and phone records. they're very good at the perjury trap. he told them he plans to be indicted. >> this came before my 47th birthday, and this has been one of the most frightening experiences of my life. >> some demand that the acting ag recuse himself from the russian investigation just as sessions did before him, a dea spokesperson released a statement today that read, quote, acting attorney general matt whitaker is fully committed to following all appropriate processes and procedures at doj, including consulting with senior ethics officials on his

oversight responsibilities and matters that may warrant recusal. more on that in just a moment. earlier today former acting solicitor general under former president obama, neal katyai, wrote in a special op-ed, quote, no one, and i mean no one, ever thought the regulations we wrote would permit the president to assign some staff member of his choice from the justice department to serve as acting attorney general and thereby oversee the special counsel. with us to talk about all of it tonight, neal katyai. he is now a professor of law at georgetown university. counselor, because your words, along with george conway, drove the news cycle late in the week last week, it's so important to have you on, and thank you for coming on. if he approaches this process organically, if he honestly goes

to the ethics officials, the kind of standing army inside the justice department, in your view how can they not come back and say you have to recuse because you've prejudged the russia matter in the media? >> first of all, it's such a treat to be with you, brian, and i think you're absolutely right. if they went to the ethics office, the ethics office applies the standards they always have applied that you can't have a kind of deep personal relationship with the subject of an investigation or the matter, it's really hard, given all the things that whitaker has said about this investigation, for him to continue. and there is a deeper problem which is it's not like whitaker is, you know, oliver wendell holmes or louis brandeis, or some brilliant person known for his independence and picked for that reason. this guy is from the bowels of the justice department. he is trump's lackey.

i think that's what makes this really stink to high heaven. so there are constitutional problems, there's statutory problems, there's ethics problems, and you have to ask why would donald trump and his justice department risk all of that, and there can only be one answer and it's because they're afraid of mueller. >> please tell the story about how last week you were arguing a case in federal court and sessions' name was part of the title of the case as attorney general. by the time you got out of court, he was no longer the ag, and more importantly, make the tie between the fact that whitt kerr -- whitaker's name now is, and because he wasn't senate confirmed, this could affect some federal cases? >> i don't think you need to be that creative. i think it's going to affect every federal case. last week i was arguing the sanctions city challenge to president trump and the case is called city of philadelphia versus sessions, or that's what it was called when i walked in at 2:00 p.m.

attorney general sessions resigned in quotes during the argument, and by the end of the argument, i don't think we really know what it's called. i don't think it is called city of philadelphia versus whitaker because whitaker happens to be a fake attorney general, and i expect litigants to start making those challenges as early as tomorrow morning. i think we're going to hear some pretty massive ones, and they will be coming and coming all throughout the next weeks and months, because this is an attorney general who does not have the power under our constitution on laws to serve as attorney general at all, and then specifically, he cannot serve with respect to mueller for the reasons we've talked about. >> so if you're telling me -- if i represent a death row inmate who i feel has been unconstitutionally imprisoned, if i'm representing a client who has been nicked three times on narcotics charges which i feel are unfair because of race or socioeconomics and sessions' name is in the title of that case, if i am crafty about it, i

can say this attorney general doesn't have the proper standing? >> you got it. everyone is going to be coming into court to make exactly these arguments, and not just in the criminal context but the civil context. the justice department is the nation's largest litigant in the federal courts by far. there will be lots of people making these arguments, and, you know, no president has ever done anything like this with respect to an attorney general. it would be one thing if it's an emergency situation or the like. this is something which trump already has his own two guys in there, the deputy attorney general and the solicitor general, but importantly, both those gentlemen were confirmed by the united states senate. matthew whitaker has not and our constitution requires it. >> what about this corsi gentleman who says he doesn't recall meeting assange. i think if you got buzzed upstairs in the ecuadorian embassy in london, you would

remember seeing assange 2-d. and when he says they make a pretty good perjury trap, what does it mean to lawyers like you when someone says perjury trap? >> it's pretty easy to avoid a perjury trap. you just have to tell the truth. evidently that's not what happened here because he says they got my e-mails and realized i was lying. if your story is i can't remember meeting julian assange, that strikes me as not the best foot on which to stand. i think that underscores the fundamental thing about the mueller investigation. it is bearing massive success. there have been so many indictments, indictment and guilty plea of the president's national security adviser, his campaign chair and the like, and that is why trump is doing what he's doing, installing a lackey who is his loyalist to try and supervise and ultimately destroy the mueller investigation. >> neal katyal, it's always a

pleasure having you on. thank you for making time for us tonight. coming up, tomorrow is the first day of orientation on capitol hill for this new freshman class of lawmakers. while no one has been sworn in yet, that's not stopping the democrats from talking about how they plan to come after this president. more on what i'm talking about when we come back. when we come . up here at the dewar's distillery, all our whiskies are aged, blended and aged again. it's the reason our whisky is so extraordinarily smooth. dewar's. double aged for extra smoothness.

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control of the house, and thus, washington is bracing for an onslaught of investigations. our friends over as axit axios reporting that democrats are unloading what they're calling a subpoena cannon with more than 800 trump targets. topping the list, president trump's tax returns, his family business, his dealings with russia, the payoff of a porn star. that's just the start. top democrats who had largely avoided the subject during the campaign now tell us they almost immediately begin exploring possible grounds for impeachment. here is how president trump reacted to questions about these investigations a day after the election. >> you're saying that if -- >> not at all. >> -- if they start investigating you, that you can play that game and investigate them. >> better than them. and i think -- and i think i know more than they know. >> can you compartmentalize that

and still continue to work with them for the benefit of the rest of the country -- >> no. >> -- or are all bets off? >> no. if they do that, it's just a whirl-like posture. >> christopher shea is a congressman from new england from 2007 until his departure in '09. and sabrina sadiqqui. sabrina, is everybody on board with this attack job before ink is dry, before hands have been raised and other hands placed on bibles and such and people sworn in? >> i think you heard a bit of caution from democratic leaders in congress who certainly don't want to give off the perception that they will only use their newfound majority to investigate and not to legislate.

but you are hearing from the incoming committee chairs a sense that there is a desire and appetite to really restore a sense of having a check and balance on this presidency given congress does have considerable oversight powers that frankly were not really used in the two years that the republicans were in control of both chambers and of this administration. and so you have that very exhaustive laundry list of avenues they intend to pursue. i think there is consensus that the priorities should be on the russia probe and any ways the president has sought to interfere with the work of the justice department, the circumstances around the dismissal of top officials both at the doj and at the fbi, particularly amid the appointment of matt whitaker and calling into question, of course, whether or not the president is seeking to obstruct justice. a lot of the other items you mentioned, i think it remains to be seen how quickly they intend to move on with those, particularly as it's going to escalate a confrontation fairly

quickly with this president. >> congressman, how many republicans voted no in the house of representatives? >> there were four of us. >> saying you were one of the four? >> i mentally weeped during this process. we were on a roll with bill clinton. we were getting so much done. we balanced the budget for four years, no deficits for four years -- >> nobody talks that way anymore, we were getting so much done. >> we had welfare reform. it was exciting. all of a sudden republicans said, we could be in power for the next 20 years if we impeach this guy. my view is elections are sacred and you have to have a really good reason. i thought the impeachable reasons weren't impeachable. the important thing is you have to have checks and balances. i understand the republicans didn't do their job. they lost in part because of trump. they lost in part because they weren't doing their job. so this congress needs to do its job. it needs to do oversight, and some of the issues that were just mentioned.

the family wealth, the tax returns and so on. >> so when you see jerry nadler, your former colleague in the house from new york city, giving almost hour-long interviews this weekend talking about impeachment, indictment, tax returns. is that a good look? >> no, it's not a good look. and jerry is a top notch member of congress. as is cummings. cummings i have total respect for. but do it slowly. you know, be specific in what you need -- go after five, don't go after 85. >> i get it. sabrina, what do you think the eve eventual embrace is for something like -- and i can't believe we are using this term and tossing it around -- impeachment among the democratic caucus in the house? >> nancy pelosi and others have been very reluctant to use the

"i" word. i think they're worried about political fallout. they don't have what are considered grounds for impeachment. even if the democrats had the votes in the house, they wouldn't have sufficient support in the senate to convict, so it would ultimately not necessarily produce any result other than swaying the court of public opinion. and i think a lot of this depends, of course, on what special counsel robert mueller eventually does recommend by way of potential charges in his report, but right now that's largely an unknown. i think both pelosi and schumer, they've had some degree of showing their tactics in terms of potentially tying, for example, legislation to protect robert mueller to a government spending bill. but even then they've stopped short of saying they would be willing to shut down the government. so i think they're being very cautious at the moment, really trying to strike a little more of a bipartisan tone than what you're hearing from some of these committee members, so there will be an effort on part

of the leaders to tamp down the expectations when the new congress takes shape in january. >> they're being cautious but they have a membership that isn't cautious. donald trump's whole stat -- strategy is to conquer and divide. you're either with me or you're not. there are people in the middle. there will be a lot of people who feel their constituents want them to go after trump in the democratic party. it would be a huge mistake. a huge mistake. >> chris wray, a sensible member in the middle. sabrina siddiqui, thank you. if our country stands alone, does it mean donald trump must as well? donald trump's solitary weekend on the world stage with the whole world watching.

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patriotism is the exact opposite of nationalism. nationalism is a betrayal of patriotism by saying, our interests first, who cares about the others. we erase what a nation holds dearest, what gives it life. >> an unbelievable scene framed by the arc detriumph. because these times call for bluntness, this is not, foto pu it bluntly, a proud moment for the american president overseas. the armistice ending the great war, as the other leaders walked shoulder to shoulder for armistice day, donald trump was nowhere in sight. they traveled together on a bus. trump arrived separately and late. the only other exception was the russian president vladimir putin who also traveled alone. his arrival was received with a smile and a pat on the arm from the american president. the white house said security

protocols were the reason for trump's solo travel. it was just a day earlier trump elected to stay in his hotel room rather than attend a rainy ceremony at the american cemetary in france. weather was blamed. it did not prevent others. the trip was capped off by the remarks you heard there delivered by french president macron, remarks about patriotism versus nationalism, remarks directly aimed at our president. when the president did appear and spoke yesterday in the rain, his aversion to discomfort, even while appearing in front of our war dead, led him to say this to the assembled american vets from world war ii. >> frank devita, thank you, frank. thank you very much. you look so comfortable up there under shelter as we're getting drenched. you're very smart people. >> as our next guest, christopher dickey, wrote this

weekend, quote, the truth is trump never wanted to be here in the first place. he wanted to be in washington reviewing a massive military parade all his own. with us tonight, jeremy bash in the pentagon, and the a forementioned christopher dickey, world news editor for "the daily beast." christopher, one is tempted when we have correspondents that are american to ask this question. what are they saying about us over there? >> reporter: well, you know, people are extremely uncomfortable with donald trump. i mean, basically his fellow world leaders think that he's ignorant and he's dangerous. but they're also coming to terms with the idea that they may be stuck with him for a while. they were looking very closely at the midterm results, and the conclusion as expressed in lamond, a major newspaper here, was that, you know, a huge part

of the american population, maybe not a majority, but a very big part still supports donald trump. and he may be reelected in 2020. as a result, they're trying to find ways to either convince him to change or to find alternatives to american leadership. >> jeremy bash, ignorant and dangerous. and add to that a kind of sadness that a lot of us watched with this weekend. >> yeah, brian, what a missed opportunity not only to honor our nation's fallen heroes, those who have sacrificed so much for all of us, and to transmit those values onto those who are currently serving, but also missed an opportunity to make a foreign policy statement that america counts on its aligned structure and is involved and dedicated to those allies that support american prosperity and security. of course, we didn't do that, either r either, because the president, through his imagery but also through his words, made clear that america stands alone and

that our aligned structure is not -- is not -- fundamental to his american policy vision at this time. >> christopher, one other question about the backdrop there. there you are in front of the arc de triumph. talk about how important it was to the brits, how important it was where you are. we saw how it was from our end. >> reporter: i think the people in the united states don't have a sense of how massive what they call the great war really was. the french lost 1.4 million americans. they lost a tenth of a generation in that war. the united states only participated for under a year and lost about 10% as many people as the french had done. so there was this sense that there was this huge war that took place and it was time to end wars like this.

and then, of course, world war ii came along. this continent has suffered enormously from the divisions created by nationalism, precisely the kind of nationalism that donald trump and his precisely the nationalism said no more. patriotism and niationalism isnt the same thing. >> part of your service, you're proudest of is working at the pentagon. presidents usually take a ride to arlington, sometimes they go to walter reid unannounced. there was none of that, even if you want to say ticking of the boxes of norms. the things we see on this weekend every year. >> and it's disspiriting because one could easily conclude now that the election is over, the president shows no interest in

saluting the flag and showing reference for our troops and those who served and might lead someone to conclude his instinct to do that is political and not substantive. i hope he reverses that and shows future remembrances how much we honor not democrats or republicans but anybody who has the courage to put the uniform on in service of our country. >> the ceremony we're looking at, the sunday ceremony here at arlington. we had another ceremony there today. chris dickie, how has in the seconds we have left, how has the standing of macron changed or given trump a foil for all things, the french president? >> well, i think his international standing is high. here in france he pushed through legislation that's not very popular. it's stuff that people have known or needed in the economy for a long time but the french don't love it and so his ratings

are pretty low domestically. internationally, it's understood. he's the one person that stands tall against trump. >> christopher dickie, famous blue raincoat on a windy night in paris. gentlemen, thank you both for coming on and having this conversation and coming up for us, an update from out west when we come right back. ate from outn we ce omright back we saved hundreds on our car insurance when we switched to geico. this is how it made me feel. it was like that feeling when you're mowing the lawn on a sunny day... ...and without even trying, you end up with one last strip that's exactly the width of your mower. when you're done, it looks so good you post a picture on social media. and it gets 127 likes. geico. fifteen minutes could save you fifteen percent or more on car insurance. that skills like teamwork, attention to detail,

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last thing before we go tonight, our attention is focused on california and try to wrap your head around this number. so far 6800 homes have been destroyed, 6,800 homes. that's more than a town, it's several including the town of paradise, california. it burned down in about eight hours. there are two major fires burning in the state that gives each one a name, the so-called campfire up north is already the most destructive in the history of the state. it has killed 42. the scariest part may be the 200 people who are missing. many people died in their cars, surrounded by fire unable to move. we heard from one woman today, a nurse who was stuck in the fire behind other cars, she looked forward, noticed the paint melting off the car in front of her. she called her husband and said

she was going to die. >> i'm in my car, and there is frames everywhere, and i said i'm going to die. and he said don't die, run. get out of your car and run. and i did. i got out of my car, and even though the flames were right on my window, i ran. firefighters came out after i knocked on the door and picked me up and put me into their fire engine and it was a miracle. it was an absolute miracle that i was even a surviving at that point, and then when i was in the fire engine, the chief in the front seat said, we need air support. we're not going to make it. it was so hot and just everywhere was -- we were breathing in fire it felt like and we got -- we got dispatched

on the radio and they said it's impossible, we can't bring in air support. >> your heart must have sunk. >> it was terrifying. it was absolutely terrifying. i never want to hear those words again, and they were able to kind of creep forward, they kept trying to creep forward as much as we can. we were at a dead stop. everybody stopped in the road. everyone's vehicles were on fire. we were able to pick up a few extra people in the fire truck letting them in, we were crammed in there like sardines and next thing we know, out of nowhere, this dozer came in and pushed cars out of the way and made a path and we were able to turn our huge fire engine around and got out of there and headed back to the hospital because it was the safest place they said. >> the other fire still grinding through malibu down south is the woolsey fire and the winds, the santa anas picked up again tonight.

the president's first instint was to blame california and threaten federal funding this weekend. hours later he mentioned the victims. there are 8,000 firefighters working tonight, best wild land firefighters in the world. most of them well past the point of exhaustion. here in new york, the empire state building is in blue and gold for california because it's at least someway of saying publicly we care. what a helpless feeling we now have as we watch this slow motion disaster on the other side of our country. for us, that is our broadcast on a monday night as we start a new week. thank you so much for being here with us. good night from nbc news headquarters here in new york. ms headquarters here in new york.

rachel has the night off. happy veterans day, if your one of them. congratulations. the news didn't slow down, not for a second. not for a two-day, let alone a three-day weekend. these absolutely terrifying and terrifyingly destructive fires have continued to ravage california. the death toll from those fires rose precipitously through the weekend. we're going to have more on that ongoing disaster in the president's ill considered response to it in just a few momentums. the midterm elections that happened almost a week ago have continued happening. not just through the weekend, but right up to this very moment. nbc news is callmo