> i think if they knew how ineffective it was with a man like bob mueller they might not do it. but i think they're doing it for an audience of one, an audience in the oval office. it's the kind of thing bob mueller might brush off. >> it's a formidable list. i think it'll hold. how do we end it. >> it was about having difficult choices, about having too much. the velocity of the year. >> alternative facts. >> no. russia did not help me. >> yeah that's him. >> mr. rosenstein, your testimony today is you believe bob mueller is a person of high integrity, right. >> yes. >> i think that bob mueller ends here at number one because he's already indicted or pled out four former donald trump campaign officials one his former national security advisor, and he heads into 2018 with the fate of the presidency in his hands. >> just been told we've had cameras on us while we were having this conversation the whole time. thanks for joining us. >> good night. >>> i'm chris matthews. after 36 years in the senate and another eight as vice president, could joe biden make another try for the white

do not remove bob mueller. a marked response. at the white house, the republicans celebrated the new tax law with president trump. senator warner clearly felt some reason to make this speech tonight. now, he has never put it this starkly on the senate floor. he told the president, removing mueller is an abuse of power and every senator must stand against that together. >> i believe it is up to every member of this institution, republican or democrat, to make a clear and unambiguous statement that any attempt by this president to remove special counsel mueller from his position, or to pardon key witnesses in any effort to shield them from accountability, or shut down the investigation, would be a gross abuse of power and a flagrant violation of executive branch responsibilities and authorities. >> as for recent white house denials about any plot to remove mueller, he said the history surprised them on jim comey and they must draw a line. >> i'm certain most of my colleagues believed he wouldn't fire jim comey either. these are red

a stunning new york times interview where the president says he thinks bob mueller will be fair in the russia investigation. at the same time, he says the probe is making the united states look bad. plus, a new warning to democrats. the president's message, no dole on doca without a wall. there is an expected staff shake-upcoming to the west thing. let's go to an bbey phillips. let's begin with what the president is saying on russia and mueller. >> the president giving an extended interview with the new york times yesterday at his golf club and talking quite a bit about this russia probe. he talked about the mueller investigation, giving a rosier view about how that investigation is going to go for him. just a little bit of what he said to them. he said there was no collusion with respect to my campaign. i think i will be treated fairly. timing-wise, i can't tell you. i don't know. but i think we will be treated fairly. two interesting things about that. the first is that the president has spent a lot of time in the last couple of weeks undermining the fbi and some of the individuals i

i have tremendous confidence in bob mueller and his team, and they also have too much confidence in bob mueller and his team. they're too worried about what he may find. to impugn the whole bureau is a way to protect the president. it's such a disservice. you have to wonder where the patriots in congress? who will stand up for the checks and balances, for the brave men and women working hard to protect us. i've worked with the fbi for over 30 years. they're the most professional of all the law enforcement agencies, and that doesn't mean that every agent does everything perfectly, but there's no indication that the bureau exercised a bias in their handling of this. you can disagree with individual decisions, and i certainly have. chief among them, the decision by the director of the fbi to discuss the clinton investigation and not inform the country of a parallel investigation of the other candidate. i don't think it was politically motivated, and to suggest that bob mueller, a republican appointed by another republican, working with other republicans is somehow biassed against a republi

run on bob mueller? what do you think the best focus is? >> i think they should run on actually ironically, populist economics. you know, the numbers on this trump tax bill are awful. i mean, something like 61% of americans believe truthfully that -- that this 83% of the money is going to the top 1%. that, in fact, is what's going to happen. they don't feel they've gotten anything out of this and we have to let them know we have a different plan. i don't think we need to spend all of our -- i think, yeah, we can run on changing. i wouldn't repeal it. simply take benefits away from all the fat cats that got them and pass them out to the middle class people. taxes are actually going up on the middle class after five years. this is chick contain canary, a center-right organization co-chaired by a former conservative senator from new hampshire who think this thing will cause huge deficits and that will cost our kids a hell of a lot of money and the public knows that. they're not fooled by this stuff. >> what about impeachment proceedings? a lot

will he try to double down on his efforts to get bob mueller out of the picture? when we do see the president overreach a situation like james comey, it sort of backfires on him. >> this is going to be a major test for president trump because remember for the last few months he has been advised by his attorney such as ty cobb that this investigation will likely be wrapping up, that white house officials will maybe finish their interviews in the next few weeks, if not months, and they had a confident aura inside the white house when lawyers were talking to the president. now someone he was so close to is under the national and legal spotlight. and this is going to test his response. can he continue to have this step back when it comes to the special counsel and let ty cobb and others handle dealing with that investigation. or will he try to be a disrupter and polite size it as he's been vi advised not to do. >> how do you politicize this? flynn is going to plead guilty to a single count of making a false statements. given your involvement, you knew something was co

that's why bob mueller is constructing this investigation from the bottom up. and, you know, obviously at this point you bring in your lesser ones early on and then only then do you bring in somebody like steve bannon. >> yeah. >> let's hear it. what was it? >> no, you want to bring in your heavy hitters later on down the line. >> spielberg said, you may remember, you can't do hamlet without hamlet. >> i think he said that. >> he may have said. that heidi, thank you for putting up with brian and i. some days are harder than others. >>> up next i will talk to the former trump aide who called one of his colleagues a coffee blow after an indictment. new reports that might throw that description into question. nick was born to move. 3 toddlers won't stop him. and neither will lower back pain. because at a dr. scholl's kiosk he got a recommendation for our custom fit orthotic to relieve his foot, knee, or lower back pain, from being on his feet. dr. scholl's. born to move. if yorheumatoid arthritisevere and you're talking to your rheumatologist about a medication, t

-- issues there. >> i think the fact that bob mueller removed somebody for the text messages is proof bob mueller is committed to undertaking this investigation with the utmost of integrity and while you're mentioning director mueller, i just want to point out that the deep, deep contrast between the kinds of speeches that bob mueller gave out at the fbi academy when he was director and that given by the president today, when bob mueller was out there, he talked about the need to engage in their work and undertake their work with integrity and always, always be committed to the truth, as opposed to engaging in the kind of fantasy attacks that the president engaged in this morning. there's an incredible contrast between the record, the public service record of bob mueller, dating back to when he was a decorated marine serving in vietnam and that of donald j. trump. >> let me ask you something else the president said, pardoning mike flynn and his answer was, his answer was i don't want to talk about pardons with mike flynn yet. is that reassuring to you? >> if president trump pardons mi

firing bob mueller would be, for many of them, the line. they are not sure about the questions of rod rosenstein or if the president starts to lean further against the fbi. at this point, they know the basis. so with the president, they haven't made a decision. he fires mueller, they will turn. but anything beyond that, they are really debating amongst themselves about how to handle president trump. >> thank you very much. still ahead on "morning joe," today president trump is set to unveil his new national security strategy. but is it really that new? we'll see how it compares to that of his predecessors. you're watching "morning joe," we'll be right back. ( ♪ ) more people shop online for the holidays than ever before. (clapping) and the united states postal service delivers more of those purchases to homes than anyone else in the country. ( ♪ ) because we know, even the smallest things are sometimes the biggest. even the smallest things the market.redict but through good times and bad... ...at t. rowe price... ...we've helped our inv

time for bob mueller to put up and shut up. if there is evidence of collusion between trump campaign and russia we need to see it. >> you know this better than i, congressman, that interviewing stage that mueller has done with that. that this might be close to conclusion. >> if there is conclusion let's see it. we're a year into the donald trump presidency almost. we had this cloud over the administration that distracts us from working on issues that could improve quality of life for the american people. if there is evidence, let's see it. right now the strongest evidence seems to indicate that you had the dnc paying for this false information and that you had the fbi then dressing that information up and then using it as basis for a fisa warrant to spy on the american people. that is what we really need answers. it is also where we need structural reform at the fbi for more transparency, more oversight, so this never happens again. neil: congressman, thank you, very, very much. >> thank you, neil. neil: we're keeping eye on th

we have no intentions of firing bob mueller. we are continuing to work closely and cooperate with him. we look forward to seeing this hoax wrap up very soon. we think that it is just further evidence that the democrats have no plan. they have no agenda. they have nothing to talk about other than attacking this president. while they've been focused on russia this president has been focused on america and focused on doing what is best for this country and hopefully some of the democrats will make some new year's resolutions to come back and talk about working with this president to help americans instead of working to attack this president. it has gotten them nowhere. i hope the new year can bring new things. >> bill: senator paul suggested that the intelligence community or some within the community conspired to prevent donald trump from winning last november. does president trump agree with that statement? >> i haven't asked him directly about senator paul's statement. i think the senator, if he feels there is something to be lo

this team bob mueller and the professionals around him heard a perceived bias and was removed, that's what you do. >> the president's legal team wrote a letter to congress complain being muller's team and his team pushing back saying not so fast these e-mails were acquired legally. >> right wire talking about public e-mails, saying bob mueller was on a transition e-mail account where there was not expectation of privacy as the fbi agents were on their work phones and their text messages were released night before rosenstein testified to the committee. and for better reason anything come before it which is they may have been working with the russians which is under investigation. i don't think that will stand up as a legal argument or keep them from being ad missable. >> this is from a interview from chris christie on msnbc earlier. >> he deserves scrutiny, you know why, because he was involved in the transition and in meetings that call into question his role. >> is that just bad blood between christie and the kushners or does he have a point. >> no he has a point it's not js jared ku

holidays, if bob mueller is fired we need the house and senate judiciary committees to be convening immediately. they've also taken out of the action, probably the most articulate member of the senate judiciary committee al franken, we have no idea who's going to be replacing him on that committee, and allegations that had roger stone and fox's fingerprints all over them. this is a big mess. i think the next two weeks it's going to be critically important to watch out and make sure bob mueller isn't left in washington, d.c., alone with donald trump, that's not a good situation. >> here's the thing to david's point. they're saying these e-mails were obtained unlawfully, right? they sent this letter to congress. i want to play again what trump is saying about the e-mails. in a sense he said he was going to fire mueller. >> not looking good, it's not looking good, it's quite sad to see that, my people are very upset about it, i can't imagine there's anything on them, frankly. as we said, there's no collusion. no collusion whatsoever. but a lot of lawyers thought that was pretty sad. >>

bob mueller doesn't speak through the press. he doesn't leak. he speaks only through the actions of these lawful materials, in this case these informations, and these other lawful documents that come out, under the laws. these have to come out. the only reason they're out. one thing that has to come out in the course of a corroborating agreement or you go before the courts bep have open courts. this is notable, the breaking news just reported from nbc news, that bob mueller has put these people, without naming them, in here. put these people here for a reason. starting to tell a story and the story is that mike flynn didn't act alone. that's part of the story that we see today. >> ari melber, watch him on "the beat" here on msnbc, 6:00 eastern. looking forward to that. >>> i bring in senator sheldon whitehouse. that subcommittee held several hearings on russia and i just want to get -- so much is going on. let me get your reaction to the latest thing which is ari just pointed out there does seem to be this narrative that is being laid out by rob

but what i can tell you from what i have learned on the house judiciary committee is that bob mueller and the fbi team made the right call when an agent's work was called into question because he had demonstrated a perceived bias. and that agent was immediately removed from the investigation. now, compare that, don, to president trump. he learned that his national security advisor michael flynn had lied to the fbi and he kept him on as long as he possibly could until it was made public by "the washington post." for over 18 days he stayed on, and finally when it became a public relations problem, he was fired. this team, bob mueller and the professionals around him, they heard about a perceived bias and the agent was removed. that's what you do when you have an issue with someone on your team. not what you do is what donald trump did with michael flynn. i'll take the mueller team any day than what we've seen out of the white house. >> the congress wrote a letter complaining about e-mails. the mueller team is pushing back releasing a statement essentially saying not so fast, these e-mai

bob mueller's work is especially important because he is working on the follow the money issues. these are really the crucial questions you see with papadopoulos, manafort, flynn, i mean, the details with respect to manafort, there's more shoes to drop here. and i can tell you that when you look at these follow the money questions, paul manafort is not going to be able sweep all the details under the expensive rugs he was buying. it is very important to protect bob mueller's ability to do the professional work he's been pursuing. and i want to be clear, is if there is any effort by the president to interfere with bob mueller's work, i think that's going to trigger constitutional crisis. >> when you say constitutional crisis, what do you mean? explain. >> well, we're talking about undermining the rule of law, and i think certainly there will be people calling for various ways to look at impeachment. i think that this will trigger real constitutional crisis. >> because you hear a lot of republicans now and conservative media, for example, saying he's hired all of these lawyers who

, and so, i think that if they knew how ineffective it was with a man like bob muellerer they may not do it, but they are doing for it the audience of one, and the audience in the oval office, and it is the kind of thing that bob mueller is likely to brush off, but it is a sort of thing that makes him even more riveting as the year ends. >> it is a formidable list. i would defend it. i think that it will h hold, and how do we end this? >> i think that the list was t ant -- was about difficult choices, and about too much, the velocity of the year and the events. >> al teternative facts. >> no, russia did not help me. >> yeah, that's him. >> mr. rosenstein, your testimony today is that you believe that bob mooul ser a person of high integrity, is that right? >> yes. >> are you going to investigate president trump. >> i think that bob mueller is number one, because he has indicted or plead out for former national security advisers and he is heading into 2018 with the fate of the presidency in his hands. >> and just been told that we have had cameras on us while we have had this conversat

but whether or not bob mueller's investigation ends by the end of the year is anyone's guess. legally it's going to play out well into next year. let's talk though, let's be blunt about the time line. in terms of tax reform to julia's point, i think that there is some concern amongst democrats that all of this investigation, by just talking about the investigation, they're not able -- they're being blindsided. they're not being able to walk and chew gum at the same time. >> that's a challenge for some people. >> yes. >> talk about tax reform. we want to move on. stick around. we'll be back with you a little bit later. but president trump seems on the verge of his first beg legislative victory. that massive tax bill that changes just about how everyone pace uncle sam. but there's still uncertainty about who is getting the best deal. nbc's kelly o'donnell with more. >> good morning, ron. president trump is spending the weekend at camp david. and the white house says while there he is meeting with vice president pence and five cabinet officials before he headed off the president

>> that's what bob mueller is zeroing in on here. the lie is what he pled guilty to. there is no dispute anymore. there's no two sides to that story. that's mike flynn agreeing with bob mueller that he lied about this, and that was wrong. to your question of why, the implication was there was something worse going on. the other part of this story that bob mueller is telling is mike flynn single person. the implication of the report we just saw here on the "today" show this morning is mcfarland, jared kushner, these people were speaking. who were they speaking for, to s potentially the president. >> should we assume this case is far from closed for the mueller team? >> far from closed. true and highly misleading, the statement from mr. cobb there. the reason is, when you make a cooperating agreement like this, you are explicitly saying to the feds, i have information i will give you on other people. those are in the documents we at nbc news now obtained. no, there isn't a new name yet in public. yes, there is an agreement to give information about other names. in fact,

so, obviously, we don't know the answer to that but bob mueller does. i think what mueller has done here, similar to what he did when he released the george papadopoulos agreement. he's letting the world know, those in the trump orbit know, he knows more facts about what happened than they do in some cases. heness more about the president's libltd than i believe ty cobb, the president's own lawyer does. he's telling people, look, we have now seen two people plead guilty, two other people charged with very serious offenses. this is your chance to come in and talk to me, to make a deal. you can either come in under the threat of subpoenaed, and if you lie to me, you'll be charged, like mike flynn, or get one of the last tickets on the train and make a trip out of the station with a favorable deal like mike flynn before i come down with heavier charges. >> what would flynn have to give prosecutors to get a deal like this? >> it's hard to say. here's what you can reasonably assume, is that the moment he decided to negotiate or seek out prosecutors, he proba

now, next summer, bob mueller has a problem. it's a little of the comey problem, because there's an election. if the house and senate fall, there's an impeachment problem. if they don't, there isn't. he doesn't want to have an october surprise, i'm assuming. right? doesn't want to say in october i'm going to throw the election with this big, broad piece of news. he's either got to wrap it up this summer or go into total quiettude, my opinion, until after the election so he doesn't seem to be throwing the election in one way or the other. >> julie, let me ask about this vein we're seeing increasingly. data. following the money and 23 following the data over these last two years. and interviews by the house intelligence committee. bob mueller looking into this data operation on the trump campaign and the house issuing an invitation to come testify. how rich is that vein? >> well, i think it's seeking to answer a question that a lot of russia watchers had, which is -- how did the russians suddenly get so sophisticated about the ame

the specific is narrative using bob mueller is constructing here? the way he is going about the charges against michael flynn and the way he has offered this bargaining plea to michael flynn? the: i think the all of evidence we have seen so far, frankly, over the last 10 months suggest that the core narrative team is looking into is whether members of the trump administration and trump campaign, including possibly then candidate trump and president trump now negotiated sanctions policy and the dropping of sanctions on russia after they knew they were can getting -- committing cyber crimes in the united states. if they knew this was occurring, you will have 80 and betting computer crimes another crimes that would go beyond obstruction, witness tampering, and what has been talked about in the media so far. scarlet: so the president is completely invulnerable to criminal prosecution while in office, correct? seth: he cannot be tried for any criminal offense. there is some split as to whether he could be indicted, but not tried for a criminal offense. m

and the president, himself, is asked, are you going to fire bob mueller yesterday, he said no. rod rosenstein was asked, have you got any indication that the president will try to fire mueller through you? he said no. you know, what about those that say this is democrats just playing politics here? >> well, look, i don't know the basis of jackie speier's assertion, but the reality is that bob mueller and the fbi and this investigation has been under tack almost since the dpi beginning. you see the republicans on the house, in the judiciary committee, attacking the professionals at the fbi, undermining the integrity of robert mueller. when he was appointed, he was praised universally. republicans, democrats, independents. he's a man of impeccable integrity, appointed by a republican president, is a republican himself, and despite that, we now see the republicans attacking robert mueller, attacking the investigation, attacking the men and women of the fbi. and you have to wonder, why? what's changed? well, i think what's changed is you've had two indictments, two pleas, one of th

i think these attacks on the institutions, these attacks on bob mueller, completely unfounded, really threaten to do incalculable and long-term damage to the whole administration of justice in this country. >> can i ask you a technical question about how these things work? intelligence committee is different than other committees in congress. you're allowed access to sensitive and secret information, you have special procedures and physical facilities for handling information. you work closely with the intelligence community and various agencies and members of the intelligence committee, being a member comes with extra prestige because of that, entrusted with that high level information. are members of the committee allowed to take materials, including the classified materials that you obtained for the purposes of the russia investigation and instead secretly start using them for something else entirely that they do without informing the rest of you? >> well, you certainly can't take any classified materials outside of the scif, the classified space, unless specific procedures in plac

that's what's happening here as we continue to see bob mueller squeezing people in trump's inner circle. what's significant and let me go back to something that jeff said, you know, jim comey talked about the fact that the president tried to stop the investigation into mike flynn. trump has called that fake news, a fake investigation. well as of about five minutes ago when a federal judge accepted a guilty plea it's not fake anymore. it's a legitimate investigation where a member of trump's inner circle tried to communicate or did communicate apparently with a foreign government, trying to effect national policy or international policy. it's no longer fake. it's real today. >> yeah. and jim, when it comes to kind of the context of all of this and maybe i'm making it too simplistic, it's worth breaking it down, he's charged for lying, yes, it's narrow, but what he's charged with is lying about talking or working with a russian government official about official government business before they were officially in office? that's the whole thing. >> that violates the one president at a time

and bob mueller is nowhere near done with this investigation. and the implications for that are important. because if you go back to the spring, the president was actively way toing to thwart and end this investigation by asking the people in the intelligence community to intervene with it, and his lawyers got him to back off on that. i think by telling him, we think the investigation will be over by the end of the year or over by january. it is very clear that's not the case. what happens when the president realizes his lawyers are wrong, that the investigation is not over, and bob mueller is looking closely at his finances. >> at his money. >> we may see a huge eruption, not just on twitter, but what he does to try to thwart or close down the investigation. >> a lot to talk about from the white house briefing that we'll be at this afternoon. now to breaking news here, garrett haake is on capitol hill. we have been talking about john conyers. the congressman accused of sexual harassment. he's now said he will be endorsing his son to replace him

, bob mueller the special counsel in the russia investigation, and the fub. do you think we're seeing evidence of that already? >> oh, i think they're undermining the russians, for sure. you look at "the washington post" yesterday, morrell's article, and it's very clear that the russias are calling in the legitimacy of the fbi. the implication is the fbi, bizarrely enough, is part of a deep state and is out to get this administration, which is pure nonsense. >> let's read part of this. i'm glad you brought it up. this is a joint op-ed by the former acting director of fbi, mike morrell, and former house intel chairman, mike rogers. the sanctions that the obama administration and congress put in place inform aftermath of the 2016 election are steps in the right direction, but they are not significant enough to check russian president vladimir putin, true deterrence requires policies that prevent adversaries from achieving their onti objectives while imposing significant costs on their regimes. so far, we have done neither. this is blasting the trump administrat

bob mueller is too experienced a prosecutor to have gone about this any other way than the right way. my guess he's had these for a long time and knows what information is in there, back and forth, who was given what position, any deals that were cut, any discussions about sanctions, she's been digging into this for some period of time. this is just noise out here to try to distract us from other parts of the investigation. >> part of all of this is where the president's head is on this, michael zeldin, the president is telling, coming from sara murray, the president telling folks he is confident that mueller will be sending him a letter clearing him of any wrongdoing. a letter coming from mueller exonerating the president, is that how this would go? >> well, it would be a lovely christmas gift for the president, but i don't think it's likely to happen. it's possible that mueller could indicate to dowd when they meet this coming week that the president is not a target of his investigation. that's theoretically possible. although i expect more likely they will not get that letter of ex

>> correct. >> is there good cause to fire bob mueller as we hit here today? >> not to my knowledge. i'm concerned that my colleagues particularly in the majority have signaled quite indiscreetly today, they would probably give the president a pass if he were to fire or order you to fire bob mueller. there have been a number of statements attempting to undermine the good character of bob mueller. that concerns me, because that would certainly fly in the face of the rule of law in this country and would not be object, i believe. with the american people or the spirit he that our country was founded upon. mr. deputy attorney general your investigation is a very narrow bridge. the important part i believe -- we need you tore fearless. we have a president who has demonstrated his willingness to be involved in investigations that involve he and his family. for the sake of our country, for the sake of rule of law, i hope that you continue to demonstrate the character that got you into this position and that has given us as a committee i think faith in your ability t

bob mueller plays hardball. i strongly suspect, particularly with the team that mueller has assembled, who are very familiar with landscape of the criminal law, very familiar with the constitutional extent of the president's pardon power, that that is something that has occurred to bob mueller. and you're absolutely right, that although the president does have the power to pardon for federal offenses, that wouldn't necessarily get all these folks off the hook, to the extent they may face liability separately under state criminal law. >> tom, good to talk to you. thank you for joining us. former deputy assistant, tom dupree. >> i'll say it again, you know who won the election? lawyers. >> no kidding. >>> stick around, everyone. right now, president trump is on his way to utah, where he is set to make a big announcement on several national monuments. we'll tell you about his plans to dramatically reduce their size and make way for big business. we're also going to speak with former interior secretary under preside

has bob mueller gone too far? >> no subpoena has been issued or received. >>> what congressman conyer's retirement means for the democrat party. this is mtp daily, and it starts right now. >>> good evening, i'm steve cornacky. for republicans winning isn't everything. it's the only thing. that seems to be the party's attitude with one week to go before that big special election in alabama. the rnc now following president trump's lead, they are backing roy moore once again. the republican nominee is accused of sexually abusing a teenage girl and sexual misconduct toward other teens and women decades ago. moore denies those allegations. the rnc had pulled support for moore and the white house kind of sort of distanced itself from the candidate at that time. president trump reiterated his support for roy moore this afternoon. >> i think he's going to do very well. we don't want to have a liberal in alabama. we want strong borders, we want stopping crime. we want to have the things that we represent and we certainly d

bob mueller doesn't issue subpoenas, he gets them from a grand jury. in order to get them from a grand jury someone has to present a need to the grand jur jury. someone testified to the grand jury and they issued the subpoena. >> martha: he said that's not a hard process and you should have done that. >> professor dershowitz says he should have gotten a search warrant. no judge will sign a search warrant, as a person who has signed thousands of them, no judge will sign them when the documents are in the hands of a third person. you sign a search warrant when you're worried about the defendant getting rid of the documents. when they are in the hands of a third person, a computer server in the possession of the government, the proper way to do this is by a subpoena, which is what bob mueller did. there is where the ball was dropped, and it wasn't dropped by bob mueller. it was dropped by the gsa, the government entity and the executive branch that owned the server. they should have said to the transition lawyer we just got a subpoena from mueller. we hav

fire bob mueller. i've heard that sessions is not safe. rosenstein is not safe and i hadn't heard the rumor about mccabe. but do you see a potential something that looks like the saturday night massacre? >> you have to consider that possibility, nicolle. adam schiff has been growing increasingly frustrated in his public comments in recent days, right? it's been, for some time, the house investigation has been sort of on the precipice and democrats really haven't had a say about when they'd call witnesses. and now it really seems like the republicans are driving towards a potentially premature conclusion. in terms of firing mueller, obviously, rod rosenstein right now is the only person who can fire robert mueller. he says pretty clearly on the hill he doesn't see any reason to do that. if jeff sessions goes and donald trump brings in another attorney general, that person would presumably take back over the supervision of the russia investigation and could fire mueller. that person would have to be confirmed by the senate and you can imagin

they just want to shut it down and focus on discrediting bob mueller. >> congressman adam schiff, top democrat on the house intelligence committee. thanks for your time. >> thank you. >> lots still to get to. stay with us. ♪ turn up your swagger game with one a day men's. ♪ a complete multivitamin with key nutrients plus b vitamins for heart health. your one a day is showing. ancestrydna can pinpoint where your ancestors are from... and the paths they took to a new home. could their journey inspire yours? order your kit at ancestrydna.com >>> so the republicans celebrated the tax bill passing today. then tonight they had to announce that actually president trump might not sign it until next year. because oops, they didn't notice that this will start cutting medicare right away if he signs it now. they didn't notice that would happen before they passed it on a rush. now maybe he can't sign it. on top of that, tonight new warnings from sources about what else the republicans didn't notice before they passed this thing all in a rush, that might affect everybody's paycheck in the whol

they saw no reason to fire bob mueller. here is what congressman matt gates of florida, a republican, said on friday about that. >> the congress have an obligation to expose this bias and expose a corrupt investigation and i call on my republican colleagues to join me and call for the firing of mueller. put up or shut up. if there's evidence of collusion with russia, let's see it. >> he is calling in his republican colleagues. here is what a colleague, john cornyn said. i think that's a mistake. is gates on an island here? >> it's a little much. it's safe to say he is. if you look at the editorializing on this, i read a review that was talking about the idea of investigating some of the investigators, the classic problem of who polices the police. a lot is based on the fact that these people have, the public has a right to have them accountable, too. there's a dlin nation there, it's a clear, clear line between people with political intentions and bob mueller, himself. there's no reason to doubt the integrity of bob mueller

details emerging on why some democrats may still try to oust bob mueller and many vowing that they are ready if it happens. >> i catch the first plane smoking, i would be here with one minute's notice if i could get here. >> we are just one night away from what we were reporting on last night. the unusual scene when senator mark warner marched to the senate floor to give his red line speech. many were wondering immediately if warner knew something he didn't. he is a normally careful senator. he turned strident. was it on more than a hunch? today, senator warner spoke again. not in the same setting. he outlined the chain of events that he thinks could set off trump. that could it trigger an attack on the special counsel. >> we don't even have near the tools that rob mueller has in his investigation. where he's already had two indictments and two guilty pleas and i believe more to come. >> i believe more to come. that is the ranking member on the senate intelligence committee. someone who we do know knows a lot more than anybody else would about this probe. he was also asked about specif

like fire bob mueller? joined by democratic senator ben cardin of maryland, the ranking member on the senate foreign relations committee. senator, thank you for joining us. >> good to be with you, thanks. >> last month you said that russia's election meddling was an act of war. when you heard about the president's speech today, were you hoping he would -- he would declare war on russia? >> well, what russia did to the united states cannot go unchallenged. it's not just the u.s. with the attempt to do in our election, they also did it in western europe and we have to speak with a strong voice we will not tolerate that type of behavior. we can't cozy up to mr. putin and give him compliments when he is attacking our country. we need to impose a mandatory sanctions that congress authorized earlier this year. the president needs to be in the forefront of working with our european allies to strengthening our sanctions against russia. that's what i want to hear from the president. he takes this seriously, taking a

. >>> and the concerted attack machine going in on bob mueller. is it all aimed at an audience of one? and is the stealth repeal on obamacare. ♪ 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 to over 150 ethnic regions- and open up a world of possibilities. ♪ save 30% for the holidays at ancestrydna.com when you have a cold, stuff happens. ♪ { sneezing ] shut down cold symptoms fast [ coughing ] with maximum strength alka seltzer plus liquid gels. so this is the all-new chevy equinox. it's gorgeous. it offers rear seat reminder, built-in 4g lte wifi... apple car play compatibility... wow... ...and teen driver technology. that's crazy... now to get all of these features, you'd need all six of those crossovers. that's insane! yep, and you still wouldn't get everything that's in this equinox. wowww... six cars in one. use your employee discount for everyone to get forty -five hundred dollars below msrp on this 2018 chevy equ

i think what -- if bob mueller is fired, the president, makes a referral to the house for impeachment, i don't know it's a crisis as a political crisis and the president of the united states, his fitness to lead, under particular circumstances is being questioned and congress is being called upon to undertake a particular remedy at a particular time. >> if the president, you know, gets indicted, bob mueller issues an indictment, and the president refuses to acknowledge its existence or its validity, who settles that? >> well, see, kons constitution crises is decided by the congress and we refer to as a constitutional crisis is a constitutional question. and so far including president nixon, everybody has abided by the rulings of the supreme court of the united states. that seems to be a fundamental sort of principle of our country. i hope and even predict that we will continue to abide by the rule of law here. >> standing under that andrew jackson portrait, you know that's what i worry about. >> crises is -- it might be a little bit overblown here. it is susceptible to debate and to r

. >> did bob mueller recruit people to his probe that had a bias against the president? >> at one point louis gomer went through individual officials' names to check their opinions about the president focusing on andrew mccabe whose wife has been active in democratic politics. >> are you aware of any of the following people openly aligning themselves with the political bias expressed by mccabe or openly speaking against this administration. first, carl gatis. >> i'm going to quarrel a little bit with the premise of your question about deputy director mccabe. but as far as assistant director gattis. he's a complete professional and to include -- >> have you ever heard him align himself with political bias against the trump administration? >> no. >> josh skule? >> no. >> larisa menser. >> i actually don't know who that is. >> all right. thank you. fair enough. brian parman. >> no. >> all right, thank you. once mueller releases its findings, it's that same committee where impeachment proceedings would have to begin. eric swalwell is a member of the intelligence committee. w

president trump's lawyer now claiming special counsel bob mueller unlawfully obtained thousands of e-mails in the russia investigation. >>> and hitting the campaign trail. the president plans to aggressively campaign in next year's midterms, but do all republicans really want him by their side? those are the big questions. >>> we begin with vladimir putin's phone call to president trump, the second call in just four days. there are reports that putin called president trump to thank him for a cia tip that helped thwart a terror attack in st. petersburg. we have an incredible team of reporters for us to break all of this down with, of course, the latest developments. nbc's geoff bennett is at the white house. i'll start with you. what more can you tell us about this phone call between putin and trump? >> reporter: good afternoon. we know that vladimir putin initiated this phone call and he's making it public. we know he called president trump, who's spending the weekend at camp david to thank him for a tip that came from the cia that helped the russian government thwart an apparent terror at

look, it is clear that bob mueller, a decorated marine, he has been doing this investigation by the book. and it's clear that what we've seen in the last few days is really a smear effort, an effort particularly because this white house, i think, is concerned that bob mueller is really digging into the essential issues, which i think really are the follow the money questions, and i think both with respect to the fbi and mr. mueller, you're really seeing something of a smear campaign under way. >> we saw senator warner give remarks at length on the senate floor yesterday, warning about the efforts to undermine the mueller investigation. we saw you giving your remarks on the senate floral tonight. congressman adam schiff has been sounding the alarm about his own committee and about the possibility for firing not just mueller, but potentially rosenstein as something that would be an affront. elijah cummings pleaded with america to guard democracy on this front. clearly a lot of democrats that are intensely involved in the investigations, including yourself, are fired up and very much alert.

being a part of the fbi and working for a man like bob mueller is great privilege. it bothered me that somebody said and i don't think they meant anything by it that bob mueller is going after the president or he's seeking to put together an obstruction case, i don't think either of those things are true. what he's doing is applying the facts to the law. when you follow the law, you get the facts and apply them to the law and if at the end of the day a particular person or a particular set of charges become pertinent, then so be it. you bring those charges against that person. but i don't think he's out to get anyone. >> let me ask you a lawyer question about john dowd. effective john dowd claiming credit to be the author of the tweet that to some implied or confirmed obstruction of justice if such a thing can happen in our world. he took a position in this case. >> right. >> does that mean he's going to have to not represent the president anymore because he could conceivably be asked did you, in fact, write that tweet? >> i guess it's conceivable. but there's also

there was enough concern that when this information was brought to bob mueller he said we need to remove him and send him back to headquarters. this guy has been sitting in the human resources pretty much doing nothing. a senior counter intelligence official. significant enough they had to remove him. >> joining us our legal analyst and national security analyst former fbi special agent so we'll get to some of this, you know, drama within the fbi, the president saying the fbi is in tatters in a moment, let's get to the president's tweet on his account, whether it was john dowd who wrote the tweet, it came out on the president's account, and it said that the president had to fire flynn because he lied to the vice president and lied to the fbi. so not what's on your screen. we'll get to that in a moment. my question to you is, how significant is it? if the president did know that flynn lied to the fbi and subsequently went to james comey, the head of the fbi and said i hope you can see your way to letting this flynn thing go, how significant? >> if what the tweet says is true, it's very si

would you be willing to cooperate as a fact witness with bob mueller? >> i haven't looked into that issue. i'm an ambassador of a foreign government. i don't know how that works with your laws. i don't think there's -- >> our countries are very, very good friends. i'm sure if you wanted to help -- >> i understand that. i don't know what is proper but publicly at the time, a year ago, i thanked the incoming administration for trying to help avert a decision we thought was very bad for peace. we were very grateful when president trump tweeted out saying that he was opposed to this decision. we reached out around the world, reached out to congress members of both parties to try to help us avert what he thought was a bad decision. not only that. i told the obama administration officials that this is what we were going to do that they were putting us into a position where we reach out to everybody in order to thwart a very, very bad decision. and so we're very grateful for any officials, if they did engage with that to try to prevent it from happening and as

>> i call on my republican colleagues to join me in calling for the firing of bob mueller. look, it's time for mueller to put up or shut up. if there's evidence of collusion with russia, let's see it. >> and the republican outrage. would the president really dare to dump robert mueller? >>> but at the top of the hour we have this breaking news. the president back speaking just moments ago outside the white house, insisting middle income americans will get a christmas gift in the form of a tax cut. his comments come despite democrats' fierce opposition to the plan. >> before they even know what the bill is all about, they talk about for the wealthy. this is going to be one of the great gifts to the middle income people of this country that they have ever gotten for christmas. >> mr. president, why are the cuts temporary? >> let's go right to nbc's jeff bennett at the white house. jeff, with a good day to you, we saw the president getting on board marine one leaving for camp david. what does the timetable look like? >> reporter: the timetable is this. the house would vote on

. >> did bob mueller recruit people to his probe that had a bias against the president? >> at one point louis gomer went through individual officials' names to check their opinions about the president focusing on andrew mccabe whose wife has been active in democratic politics. >> are you aware of any of the following people openly aligning themselves with the political bias expressed by mccabe or openly speaking against this administration. first, carl gatis. >> i'm going to quarrel a little bit with the premise of your question about deputy director mccabe. but as far as assistant director gattis. he's a complete professional and to include -- >> have you ever heard him align himself with political bias against the trump administration? >> no. >> josh skule? >> no. >> larisa menser. >> i actually don't know who that is. >> all right. thank you. fair enough. brian parman. >> no. >> lrtall right, thank you. once mueller releases its findings, it's that same committee where impeachment proceedings would have to begin. eric swalwell is a men of tmbere intelligence committee

>> well, i think anybody would need to be concerned if bob mueller was fired. i think this investigation is moving. it's going to shake down the way it's going to shake down. there's a lot of different avenues. i've been in grand injuries and dealt with subpoenas before. i think this is going to just run sits course. i don't think he's going to rush it. but at the same time, i think he's moving it fairly expeditiously because he understands the importance of trying to get this out in the open as soon as possible. >> roy moore, your opponent, your vanquished opponent, still has not conceded. he's still fund-raising even after both steve bannon and president trump called on him to concede the race. fund-raising e-mails say the battle is not over. they claim voter fraud and ask for money for an election integrity fund. what's your message to roy moore this morning? >> it's time to move on. alabama has spoken. it was a close election. no question about that, but elections can be close sometimes. but now it's time to heal. now it's time to move on and go to the next

one is are republicans in congress souring on bob mueller or is the american public souring on him. at the top of the segment, you mentioned that "wall street journal" poll. >> jesse: right. >> what that looks like people don't know who bob mueller is. if you have 21% of the people saying that they have an unfavorable and 28% saying favorable, that means less than 50% of america has any idea who bob mueller is. >> jesse: i would agree with that. if i asked the first ten people who he is, maybe three or four would know. does that say that the public doesn't care about the russia story and has nothing to do with jobs, wages or national security? >> yeah. i'm personally glad that looney on thes democrats like the ones in congress are wasting their time on this conspiracy nonsense. while that happens, we've been dumping red tape, appointing great stellar conservative justices. we've been cutting taxes. so listen, adam schiff, knock your day out. >> trump -- they're both from california, right? >> yes. >> jesse: exactly. the people out there in california really dislike the republican pa