care about the white house. you care about congressional staff, you care about interest groups and advocacy organizations. and the individuals who work for those organizations. you care about the media. you want to have good relationships with the media. you also want to have good relationships with the bureaucracy. and certain departments in which you have a lot of work. in this city i would make the case that personal relationships with sort of the coin of the realm. when somebody like sean spicer or reince priebus leaves the white house, it's not just that they have to recruit, rehire, retrain, they also lose all of those personal relationships. and those are things that are not easily transferable. you can teach somebody how to do a job. you probably hire somebody who has experience in washington, and in politics. they're relatively easy to probably train and show them how -- the ropes. but you cannot transfer all of those personal relationships. so for those reasons i would say that it's very important to s

it changes the white house. it changes the clintons. >> there seemed to me to be a terrible cloud everywhere. >> vincent foster was a lifelong friend of president clinton's, and mr. clinton returned to arkansas for the funeral service. >> in the meantime, he's asked the justice department to coordinate the investigation of this tragedy. >> but on the night of the suicide and the days that followed, that investigation would be complicated by disputes over the contents of foster's office and who had access to it. >> vincent foster has died. the president has been informed. mrs. clinton has been informed. people then start visiting vincent foster's office in the white house. >> there was evidence that documents were removed from foster's office. >> the white house counsel, bernard nussbaum, presidential aides, mrs. clinton's aides start removing documents. now, what's going on with that? >> the park police wanted to come in and search the office for his papers. >> mr. nussbaum is denying them access. >> his positio

if you're working in the white house you don't just care about the white house but congressional staff, interest groups and advocacy organizations and individuals who work for those organizations, you care about the media, you want good relationships with the media and good relationships with the bureaucracy and certain departments, in this city i would make the case that personal relationships are the realm. when somebody like sean spicer eaves the white house it is not just that they have to recruit, rehire, retrain but they lose all those personal relationships and those are things that are not easily transferable. you can teach someone to do a job, hiring somebody with experience in washington dc and politics, relatively easy to train and show them the ropes but you can't transfer all those personal relationships. for those reasons i would say it is very important to study white house staff turnover and we should care about it. i want to talk about the emergence of my data set and prior research and i will not spend a lot of time on it, so like a very dry title but the idea is a lo

the white house. never before has cuffy's long heel trod the white house floor." alluding to the black guests at the new year's reception, columbus, ohio, paper snidely said "a negro major in full uniform was put off the street cars in washington and made to walk. let him go to the white house for consolation, there he will be received as one gentleman receives another." three weeks later, that african-american major alexander t. augusta, took up that newspaper's sarcastic challenge and went to the white house. dr. augusta was the director of the freedman's hospital. along with his assistant, surgeon, and protege, dr. anderson abbott, also black. he attended a white house reception where, according to a baltimore newspaper, they were kindly received. dr. abbott recalled that the commissioner of public buildings, benjamin brown french, greeted them. that is, he greeted him and dr. augusta, with all the urbanity imaginable, and conducted them to the president. upon catching sight of major augusta, linco

kelly o'donnell at the white house. for more on all of us this let's bring in steve israel, a former democratic congressman from new york. mr. israel has served in democratic leadership positions, was a top ally of nancy pelosi when he headed the committee that helped reelect democrats. . a republican strategist who worked for the george bush administration and the 2012 romney campaign. congressman israel, let me begin with you, you're a former party whip. how big is it that two republican senators now say basically make a deal, breaking with their own conference putting more pressure on the president? >> well, it's very significant, and here's why. in the next cycle not only is this a presidential campaign, but you've got 22 republican senators up for re-election compared with only 12 democratic senators. a signature number of those 22 republicans are running in purple states. the longer this shutdown continues the more jeopardized their elections are. i think you will see more defections from moderate republican senat

if you're working in the white house don't just care about the white house. you care about staff and groups and about the media. and in this city, i would make the case that personal relationships are the foot of the point of the realm. so is not just they have to re retrain, they lose personal relationships that are not easily transferrable. you can in the transfer those personal relationships. and so for those reasons i would say that it's very important to study white house staff turn over and we should care about it. i want to talk about emergence of the data set and prior research. and i won't spend a long time on this. it sounds lick a dry title. idea is that a lot of people ask me how do you get this sample? how do you have a list of white house staff you can compare trump to? back to reagan? and i point out number one, there is not a lot of transparency when it comes to white house staffing. it's difficult to determine number of white house staff. and that is because presidents have had a tradition of hiring people from agencies and president presiden

here's the white house. that's the glass house down there. at this stage the white house was still recovering from the war of 1812 and the burning of 1814. there is a wall around it put in by jefferson. you can see a gate over on the right-hand side with a tiny carriage. i challenge you when you're looking at the painting to find the carriage. it's the size of a grain of rice. pennsylvania avenue did not go through to begin with. at this stage they had cut it through above the white house. you can see lafayette square, which is finally getting tidied up and then to the left of lafayette square you can see blair house. above it, decatur house. at this stage, 1825, the south portico had just gone in. the north portico had not been finished. john quincy adams had become the president but his great gardening efforts had not really gotten under way. down in the foreground you can see the boons' cottage. john quincy adams used to swim in the river all the time. there is a good diary entry where he says he went down to the willows. the mansion is ju

the white house has not commented on that. we are not expecting any comment and i am told they are not looking for an alternate location. there is so many other urgent matters that's happening right now on their plate. in terms of anticipating a response on that particular issue which yesterday our guidance was maybe something coming quickly, clearly that's not happening. they are not addressing that. this move is a way to try to shine a light on what people in the white house would say is the speaker wanting it both ways, to be talking about negotiations and upbringing people together and having a plan trip. as congressman kildee points out that speaker pelosi was not taking it. >> did you know that? >> i have no idea. i will tell you this. this is a woman who'll take all responsibilities extraordinary. he works ha she works harder than anybody here on the globe. president trump should take a lesson from her. if he worked that hard, he would not ha and we would not have a problem. >> reporter: she's a global figure now. >> yo

fill us in. >> the white house is actively engaged in the search. they sent scouting teams to different locations around the world that the white house is considering as locations for the summit. we know that singapore which is where the last summit was is not on the list, but there are a host of other countries that have pros and cons. the u.s. doesn't have a leading contender yet and haven't shared a list of possible locations with the north koreans. that's going to be the key. it's going to be a challenge on two fronts. the first of which kim jong un doesn't like to leave north korea and he is cautious. doesn't like to leave it without his control. an administration official told cnn, my colleagues here that he was particularly sensitive after the singapore summit. he received criticism for arriving on a china air flight. it will be a challenge to see how he gets there. as i mentioned before, with stalled diplomacy, how are you going to figure this out? if steve is meeting with his north korean counterparts, they have to get it on the calendar. >

congress and the white house. democrats take majority in the white house. divided government, here we come. it is not the fact that policy wise or politically, we are not sure what will happen over the next two years, it seems gridlock. it is who is coming to washington. if you look at the 2018 elections, the class said they will change d.c. you have fire brands like alexandria ocasio-cortez and rashida talib. they made it clear they don't agree that congress business as usual is something they subscribe to. in all, you have 40 women coming to congress. more than ever before. on the other side of that, 20 veterans are coming to congress as well. you have a new group of african-americans and new group of the first two muslim members of congress to ever serve. native-americans to serve. diversity is the biggest story of the class. diversity is the biggest story of the 116th congress. the questions are not just the make of congress, although it is important that it reflects far more of the country that they currently serve. it is what actually will happen. dem

and nancy cook, white house reporter for politico. phil, as emotional as that is, and as abrupt a reminder to everyone watching that these are families, many of them, choosing between gasoline and childcare and food and medicine and those kinds of things because it's hard to just take away a pay period or two, god forbid. i want to show you a bit of sean hannity's broadcast tonight, phil, we'll talk about it on the other side. >> drugs are pouring across our borders, leading to even more death and more destruction. human trafficking, drug trafficking, violent offenders. without a doubt, this is a national emergency. it's time to build the wall. the president is right to fight to protect american lives. >> phil, is it me or could he be possibly laying the groundwork for the president to declare a national emergency tomorrow night? >> well, it's not the first time, brian, that his show has been in sync with this white house. and i think he is very much helping the white house lay the groundwork for that. we saw that today. i was at a br

white house officials thought maybe privately they would come off it a little bit if the white house offered some concessions as well. that didn't happen, and the meeting ended with the president telling them bye-bye. no other meetings scheduled right now. >> in terms of the president's address last night, did it accomplish what the president wanted it to? >> white house officials feel it went well because there weren't any mishaps. the president didn't stumble. that was a venue he had been uncomfortable with. he had not wanted to do many addresses from the resolute desk. but other than this, they thought it went fine. the president himself told news anchors according to the "new york times" that he didn't think the message last night was going to change any minds of his critics and it doesn't seem to be that way, which is the agreement that neither did the democratic rebuttal that followed the president. so neither of the measures seemed to move the goal posts here for these negotiations. the president also said he didn't think the trip to the border would really do that either. >>

we're getting new insight into the white house from former white house aid cliff simms. this is what the washington post published. they published excerpts from his book and they write this. he said it's impossible to deny how absolutely out of control the white house staff, again, myself included, was at times. so you're at the white house almost every day. it lines up with all that has been reported about the dysfuncti dysfunction. how does the behind the scenes chaos contribute to how the shutdown is unfolding? and everything else? >> you know, chaos is too kind of a word. larry kudlow came out to the briefing room and we were talking about the severity of the shutdown, but he couldn't deny that there was, quote, hardship, he kept going back to but we have this wall issue. it just doesn't marry. when you have people that are hurting, and i talked to officials that even said that yes, the nation is vulnerable. i got that today, but yet it's all about a wall. everything is vulnerable. people are in hardship for this wall. it will only deal with a certain portion of the

with the white house. this indictment right here has specifically to do with roger stone and his lying to a house intel committee. right now, it is not directly specifically tied to this white house. it's more on -- >> alice -- >> i'm not absolving them. they can say that at this point. >> the indictment says that roger stone who, by the way, the president freely associated with for a number of years. i mean, the argument that, well, he's a lousy guy doesn't hold up when you say that about a host of people who worked with the president including michael cohen for years. he was in touch with senior trump campaign officials. you have a line there about a senior trump campaign official directed by an even more senior one to reach out and be updated on this. how can the white house credibly claim it has nothing to do with them when the indictment is full of references to communications about this with stone. >> i'm not saying they can credibly claim that. that's how they are handling this. from my standpoint i

times white house reporter eli stokols and nancy cook, white house reporter for "politico." we obviously just heard from vaughn how this shutdown is impacting federal workers outside of the beltway. are the financial concerns of federal workers part of the equation for the white house? >> they don't seem to be, to be real honest with you at this point. if you just look at what the back and forth with congressional leadership has been and really what the president has been tweeting about, his message has focused almost exclusively on border security. he's stating that that is what he was elected to do. he was elected to fight for that. that was his signature campaign issue, building the wall, being tougher on illegal immigration, but he was also elected as somebody who he said would be better for american workers, and you know, right now as you just pointed out and as vaughn's story gives some detail to, there are 800,000 or so government employees who are doing being adversely affected as a result of this shutdown, this impasse, and you just haven't really seen those stories

> yeah, this happened on the white house driveway. sarah sanders after doing a pretape for the jesse waters show on fox news. walked back and did a brief gaggle outside the west wing entrance where she mirrored comments made by rudy guliani in the last couple hours in which guliani said "any suggestion from any source that the president counselled michael cohen to lie is categorically false." those were the words that the press secretary sarah sanders used today, "categorically false" and citing guliani. guliani says that michael cohen is a convicted criminal and a lawyer. to quote the prosecutors, he's traded on a pattern of lies and dishonesty over an extended period of time and for that he will pay a serious price. today's claims are made-up lies. more of michael cohen's malice and desperation in order to reduce his sentence. you pointed out this morning and it wasn't just hogan gidley and kellyanne conway, that when white house officials were asked about it, they didn't come out and deny it. they trashed buzz feed and michael cohe

house named linda tripp. >> there had been so many corrupt activities at the white house, monica lewinsky became the straw that ultimately broke the camel's back. ♪ >> new year but no resolution to a partial government shutdown. president trump says calm down and enjoy the ride. special counsel robert mueller's russia probe nearing a pivotal point, or is it? we have heard many predictions. tonight we take a look at the people and events shaping the investigation. and find out whether it's really winding down. "addicted in america," part two. we investigate alcohol addiction all across america. this is "special report" ." >> ed: good evening, welcome to washington. i am ed henry in again for bret baier. president trump woke up early and again was

i will never forget his crowd came to the white house, i was at the white house and saw the kids chanting. he heard that but still celebrated the change in history for barack obama. he told me a week prior to that, he saw the racism going on. i was shocked with the honesty and conversation and i will never forget the day barack obama, the day after he was elected the president marked history from the rose garden. he was in the oval office very upset. i don't know what was going on, we were waiting for him to come out. he had steve hadley and others in the office and all of a sudden he was very angry, he turned and saw me and stopped and raised the roof and we both laughed, it changed the atmosphere. now a story. >> host: what about president obama? >> guest: the story of president obama. traveling to africa with him. in the interview with him on air force one. i don't tell the story a lot. it is not about politics or policy. this is a personal thing. when he is leaving office he and michelle obama were leaving the white house, my two daughters had an audience with them to say goodbye. tha

white house lawyers are laying the groundwork for such a move. and with the mueller investigation, clearly in its own stretch, the president's legal team is also preparing for a major fight over executive privilege. cnn has learned they believe much of the special counsel's report should be kept from congress and the american public. but new light may be shed on the russia investigation as former trump lawyer michael cohen has now agreed to testify publicly before congress. i'll speak with maize hirona of the judiciary committee. our correspondents are sfanding by with full coverage. let's begin with the breaking news and robert mueller's investigation and bring in our senior justice correspondent evan perez and crime and justice reporter shimon prokupecz. why does the white house want to block the mueller report from becoming public? doesn't that make the president appear to be guilty? >> they don't believe it does. it comes down what you said, executive privilege. they believe that the information that the white house shared with the special co

how would this sort of thing work in a normal white house? joining us now is chris lu who was white house cabinet secretary in the obama administration. thank you for your time. >> thank you. >> if the deputy white house chief of staff faced credible allegations of corruption and self-dealing, who is supposed to look into that in a normal white house? >> well, in a normal white house that person would have been out on the street so quickly. literally every single day of this white house i thought to myself if i did something like this i would have gotten fired. i mean this stinks on so many levels. you have somebody who's staying on government payroll without working, which is offensive even if we weren't in the middle of a government shutdown. you have somebody who abuses their authority to try to get a legislative fix to help only themselves. you have a 36, 37-year-old who wants to claim early retirement after 15 years. this is the definition of a swamp. and in a normal white house you'd have a chief of staff and president who would set hig

for the man in that house to care. >> for the white house, ,hristmas 1978 meant hope nostalgia, thanks. it was president johnson's last christmas. though he was in the hospital with the flu, he was home in time for the presence to be open . all of his family, except his two sons-in-law, were gathered about him. this year, more so than in recent past, was ending on a note of hope. astronautss, the were safely home. all the contingents of the vietnam conflict had gathered in and the nation gathered like never before. president johnson shared the satisfaction of all of americans in these blessings. but as always, his thoughts were on those who were far from home, standing vigilant on the freedoms that we cherish. christmas, the world is promise ofwith the peace. when the guns are quiet once again, it will come because you have pursued it with your courage and your skill. have w come because you on it, with a steadfast stirring that adds new luster to the tradition of american arms. this will be my last christmas message to you, as your , but i will-chief remember you all the days of my li

she is exploring a white house bid. the massachusetts senator who has long positioned herself as a major adversary to president trump begins her three-day swing tonight. from there she will be making stops in soouz city, counssioux council bluffs, and des moines. nothing more important especially in iowa after warren iss issues this warning to her own party earlier this week. >> this is going to be the fisher cut bait year for the democrats. is this going to be a primary that truly is a grass rights movement that is funded by the grass roots and done with grass roots volunteers or is this going to be one more play thing that billionaires can buy? >> take that, michael bloomberg and tom steyer. he said let's not divide here. we are not even out of the gate. let's take a breath. it was interesting. there is so much news with the shut down and everything else. the fact that she decided to come out on new year's eve and get ready of everybody. not just get ready, but call the field and start to insult her adversaries. she i

joining me now, gabriela orr, white house reporter for politico and jeff mason, white house reuters correspondent. jeff, you were in that room as lawmakers arrived for this meeting. it sure sounds like both sides are digging in. >> it certainly does. the president made very clear that the wall was his top priority. he did indicate he's willing to see what the democrats come to the table with. he did say he thought they could make deals in 2019 and work together, but then he just doubled down on that wall and said, as in the clip that you just played that the government could stay shut down for some time. he went over and over again with secretary nielsen, the secretary of homeland security and the attorney general and acting for justification as far as needing the wall and talked about it's a major security issue. that's the message he's going to bring in this afternoon in the situation room, which adds another element of secrecy and importance to that topic. >> what is your reaction to what we heard from the president and do you think anything will actually be accomplished? this meeting at the w

the white house has denied it. it just underscores that the government's still shut down and these are the people that are supposed to be talking and figuring a way out of this and it just seems that everybody is further apart and not moving. they believe their winning the political fight and believe their bases are happy. we essentially stand now almost four weeks into this shutdown exactly where we did on day one of this shutdown. none of that is happening over the weekend either. there's the microon the fight over the flights and there's the macro and things are broken down right now. >> talking to a coast guard wife yesterday she just said how scared she is. phil mattingly, thank you. >>> what about the potential 2020 contenders? they're weighing in on this buzzfeed news report today from senators corey booker to bernie sanders. we'll take you live to iowa where senator kirsten gillibrand where she addressed the possibility that the president obstructed justice. what she just said next. at fidelity, we help you

he says he doesn't want to pull that trigger just now but according to white house officials the white house counsel emmett flood is looking into the possibility. if the president were to pull that trigger, dane, a you can pet the democrats would go for legal action in a heartbeat. >> dana: you have a new response from the white house on the claim of terror suspects at the southern border? >> yes, this is something that stems from chris wallace' interview with sarah huckabee sanders sunday morning, she said 4,000 tlifts, terror-connected people were apprehended at the border. tlifts. and the most vulnerable part of the entry process into the country, is the southern border. it turns out that is misstating the case, kellyanne conway on the driveway, we will have the tape m a few minutes, said that was a misstatement. she said last night on laura ingraham's program as well. >> it was a misfortunate misstatement, all of us make mistakes. it's corrected here. anybody who turns a blind eye to the actual numbers of the human trafficking, the increase in the drugs, we are concerned about your

live from the white house. i don't know what sarah sanders is supposed to say, but i want to get to the nitty-gritty of this and the legal in just a minute. again, this is the ceo of the trump organization who said he was going to run the government like a business. what business school teaches you that if you're the ceo and now six people -- five of whom are actually pretty close to you. in the case of michael cohen and roger stone, very, very close to you -- are under indictment. there's been no direct criminal allegations against the president with roger stone. michael cohen alleges he is involved in another violation. in another document, michael cohen admits he lied for the president. what else do they need? if you put them in the search engine on computer, you will find that they are snakes. >> the irony is if this actually were a business, it's hard to believe they would survive. we have so many people with so many legal problems. trump, before he came into the white house, surrounded himself with some p

there is now a trend of white house officials or people close to the white house who didnon't seem to understand the paycheck to paycheck nature of some government employees. >> i don't really quite understand why because as i mentioned before, the obligations that they would undertake say borrowing from a bank or credit union are in effect federally guaranteed. >> but this is so much bigger than any one person. it is a little bit of pain, but it is going to be for the future of our country. >> huge share of government workers were going to take vacation days say between christmas and new year's. and then we have a shutdown. and so they can't go to work. and so then they have the vacation but they don't have to use their vacation days. and then they come back and they get their back pay, and in some sense they are better off. >> okay. cue the cleanups when you have comments like this. the first comment from the commerce secretary is he doesn't understand why people are going to a food bank, why not just get a loan. he used the words nobody should have a liquidity crisis. almost as one

is the white house manufacturing a crisis? >> i think that the white house -- what they -- what -- how sarah could have handled that better is if she would have put her explanation at the end at the front end. and say, look, we have problems with terrorists coming through. the majority have come through the air and the sea. as she said. and also the border. but because she made it sound as though -- you have the illusion it was all through the border. >> but i'm not even sure it's true any are coming through the border, according to the state department. and this is the bureau of counterterrorism portion of the department, wrote in a july 2017 document, and i'm quoting, no credible information that any member of a terrorist group has traveled through mexico to gain access to the united states. >> well, you know, her job is to talk about what the president wants to communicate. our job as journalists, as chris wallace did, is to -- to, you know, sort of pressure them with facts. and sometimes it doesn't look good. >> okay. got

blake burman from the white house. melissa: here is now kevin hassett white house council of economic advisors chairman. let me ask you about that last point. does that sound right, 1.7% for the quarter? >> sure. what happens is when the bureau of economic analysis, when they calculate gdp, they basically have to go estimate how much the government produces. in their estimate how much the government produces based on government workers going to work and getting paid. if government workers don't go to work, they reduce their output calculations accordingly and we made an early estimate right at the beginning of the crisis was a little bit lower than the estimate you just cited. we have been studying it hard as it has gone on, found the damage is little bit worse because of government contractors, something excluded from our first analysis. the fact there is a lot of pain. at cea none of our staff are being paid. a lot of our goals have been furloughed. we have one staffer told me over the weekend, she is driving an uber

let's go back to the white house and our chief white house correspondent jim acosta. >> reporter: according to my colleagu colleagues, the house speaker was scheduled to leave this afternoon and essentially the president pulled her ticket, pulled her plane and denied her that ability to fly on a military aircraft on this upcoming congressional trip. we're still waiting on some kind of response from the speaker's office but this just came out to the white house pool in just the last couple of minutes. this is from a senior white house official describing what the president did in this action, it says he postponed her ability to use military air as he made clear in the letter. she can still go but most do so commercially. if she had gone on this trip, she would have guaranteed that 800,000 federal workers would not have received their second paycheck because she would not be here to negotiate any kind of deal. the president is trying to put the onus and i guess transfer ownership of this shutdown from himself to the democrats and nancy pelosi as we saw earlier today. she's not having anything

here's the white house. that's the glass house down there. at this stage the white house was still recovering from the war of 1812 and the burning of 1814. wall around it put nd in by jefferson. you can see a gate over on the right-hand side with a tiny carriage. i challenge you when you're looking at the painting to find the carriage. it's the size of a grain of rice. pennsylvania avenue did not go through to begin with. at this stage they had cut it through above the white house. you can see lafayette square, which is finally getting tidied up and then to the left of lafayette square you can see blair house. above it, decatur house. at this stage, 18 ta, the south portico had just gone in. the north portico had not been finished. john quincy adams had become the president but his great gardening efforts had not really gotten under way. down in the foreground you can boons' cottage. john quincy adams used to swim in the river all the time. there is a good diary entry where he says he went down to the willows. the mansion is just above the co

jeff mason, white house correspondent for reuters. the big announcement this weekend, kamala harris and this 20,000 plus turnout. it was pretty impressive to see. >> she stuck the landing and particularly given the fact that she slow rolled it. she announced an announcement of an announcement of an announcement and i thought that you have probably used up a lot of the oxygen but as other people have observed, that was obama-esque to get a crowd of that much size of that energy. a huge selling point for her is going to have to be i can go crowd for crowd with donald trump, if donald trump does his rallies i can too, i can generate that kind of energy. >> bret: jeff, do you agree? >> yes, and early, it's hard to forget that we are actually -- it's just january still at 2019. we are a far ways away from getting to the iowa caucuses, from getting to the point where voters will actually make some decisions and to get that many people now at this point in the process, it's a feather in her cap. >> bret: she benefits from california moving u

a white house official tried to explain saying white house had not publically confirmed the deaths of the u.s. soldiers in syria at the time pence was speaking. we found the u.s. coalition against isis did tweet a message about the deaths a full hour before the vice-president's speech. the white house has been asking lawmakers to stay away from a bipartisan effort that had been building to temporarily reopen the government. wolf, after the house speaker nancy pelosi sent that letter saying perhaps the president should postpone his state of the union speech or submit it in writing, we have not heard from the president all day long responding to that. the white house just put out what we call a lid over here, basically saying for the second straight day the president will be basically behind closed doors, not making any kind of public statement during this government shutdown. >> a lid doesn't preclude the president from tweeting. right? >> reporter: that's right. he can tweet at any time. there's no lid on the tweeting as we know. it is rather striking, remarkable for nancy pelosi to s

you've worked in a white house, we have never seen anything like what we're seeing in this white house. and that decision today to have a legislative meeting about the budget in the situation room was obviously a stunt at the republican white house. and it makes me wonder at what point do the democrats say we aren't going to participate in white house stunts, if you want to have real white house meetings we'll attend those? >> right, and i think that in the first meeting of the year when you're the incoming speaker and the senate minority leader in the case of pelosi and schumer and the president of comes too, a for an obvious reason to make it seem like national security is at stake with the wall, which it's not. and even at a trump white house you're not going to let the press send their cameras into the situation room. perhaps a staff person wisely thought at the white house end not allowing cameras in, it was going to end up being better for the president. and the situation room is a place to do that. >> i think that's a great point, jennifer. i didn't think of that, but the white

house, but then democrats and republicans from the white house and senate, that meeting was in the white house situation room, which normally is a room where they have the most extreme national security secrets that are discussed. was that unusual from your perspective? >> yeah, so clearly, he's trying to sort of emphasize that border security is a national security issue. traditionally, border security is a national security issue, when you're talking about actually securing the border and u.s. territory from genuine threats. the problem with trump's wall, it's not actually going to secure anything. security experts agree, it is an ineffective waste of money. and there aren't genuine threats here. president trump is sort of pretending as though desperate individuals are some sort of genuine security threat. what the president is trying to do is sort of co opt the images of national security as a form of pageantry for political purposes. we see him do this a lot, whether or not he's giving political rallies in front of uniformed troops or holding things like this meeting in the situation

i'll see you at the white house in just a little bit. now more news with craig melvin. >>> good morning to you. craig melvin here at msnbc here in new york city. despite fears of a global economic slowdown, president trump insisting he will not cave on the border wall to reopen the government. >>> also, reversing course. rudy guiliani adding new confusion about the president's business interests in russia during his campaign. and in a new interview, guiliani starts to wonder about his own legacy and what his gravestone might say. >>> also, national flashpoint, a kentucky school closed today reportedly over security concerns. it finds itself at the center of a firestorm after that video showed its students in a confrontation with a native american veteran. now president trump is weighing in. we'll get to those stories in just a moment. we start this hour with breaking news from the supreme court, which just gave the president a win on his attempt to ban transgender troops from serving in the military. pete williams has been following all

the white house hasn't said anything. but us white house reporters are checking to see what happens. now it's the president's move to figure out his check mate to this. >> the president wants to make this shutdown not feel real, and she wants to make it feel real. he's sending government workers to try to make things feel normal. she's reminding people this is not normal. there is a shutdown going on. we're postponing the state of the union. look at the stories from the people. it's part of the strategy as they try to win the political battle over the shutdown. >> seconds after the words came out of my mouth about congressman gottheimer joining us, he has cancelled. this was a set up interview. they say officially because of scheduling concerns. we obviously hope they can figure it out in the next four minutes and get him back. we'd love to talk to him. it was significant he's going to the white house in the first place, because no democrat has met with president trump since that walkout that everyone talked about a week

here's the white house. that's the glass house down there. at this stage the white house was still recovering from the war of 1812 and the burning of 1814. there is a wall around it put in by jefferson. and you can see a gate over on the right-hand side with a tiny carriage. i challenge you when you're looking at the painting to find the carriage. it's the size of a grain of rice. pennsylvania avenue did not go through to begin with. at this stage they had cut it through above the white house. you can see lafayette square, which is finally getting tidied up and then to the left of lafayette square you can see blair house. and above it, decatur house. at this stage, 1825, the south portico had just gone in. the north portico had not been finished. and john quincy adams had become the president, but his great gardening efforts had not really gotten under way. but down in the foreground you can see the boons' cottage. great, he used to swim in the river all the time, john quincy adams. and there is a good diary entry where he says he went down t

my clegg at the white house. garrett on capitol hill. charlie and msnbc contributor, barney frank, former democratic congressman. thank you for being here and happy new year to you guys. jeff, i want to start off with you. i would like you to set the scene here and the stakes. how is president trump trying to frame this debate, he canceled new year's and he's been at the white house trying to handle all of this and, yet, no signs he is ready to make a deal. >> great to see you, kristin. >> reporter: the president's message is he is here in washington, at the white house, ready, willing and able to do a deal. that talk, that rhetoric hasn't been backed up by action. as we understand, the president has not talked to democratic leaders in at least ten days and is in no mood to make concessions as aides tried to soften his position saying the border wall was a metaphor for border security. we have seen how the president undermined them. here is the latest tweet. the democrats, as i suspected, allocated no money for a

he did get stuff done at the white house this past year. an extension of 2018 going into 2019. >> it is different way, hollywood is treated in favor of conservatives versus hollywood coming out and firing at republicans. heather: jane curtin who is known for her role in the movie coneheads kicked off the new year with controversy by saying this on cnn it's new year's eve show. >> my new year's resolution is to make sure the republican party dies. heather: that did not sit well with some conservative commentators like tommy laren who says her saying that only makes us 100 times stronger, these libs don't get it, tucker on twitter saying that is not hate speech or anything and lastly best signing in saying jane is out of touch with reality. a lot of people ringing in the new year wanting unity and saying they hope people come together but not miss curtin. >> it is new year's eve, what is the point? why do that on new year's eve? great job in times square with griff. >> we had a blast, thank you so much. thank you so much. it is 26 after the t

if you're working in the white bout the 't just care a white house. about staff and groups about the media. i would make ty, personal hat relationships are the foot of realm.int of the is not just they have to retrain, they lose personal relationships that are not transferrable. you can in the transfer those personal relationships. and so for those reasons i would it's very important to study white house staff turn over and we should care about it. i want to talk about emergence f the data set and prior research. and i won't spend a long time on this. it sounds lick a dry title. idea is that a lot of people ask me how do you get this sample? how do you have a list of white house staff you can compare trump to? back to reagan? and i point out number one, there is not a lot of transparency when it comes to white house staffing. etermine icult to d number of white house staff. idents t is because pres have had a tradition of hiring and e from agencies preside presidents started at fdr. i thought this is great. this if they t want to include 40 people, th

three former white house photographers talk about their work with president george w. bush, bill clinton, and brock obama. they share photographs showing these presidents in their public and private moments. we also see first families and white house staff and hear the stories behind each scene. the event is about one hour and 40 minutes. >> good evening everyone and how is everyone doing tonight? excellent. led to here. i am the educator and public programs manager here and welcome to the evening's event photographing the president which is part of our public programming roster in support of our newest exhibition from other american libraries. this exhibition tells story of american history through photography to the archives of the library of congress. through these photographs we tell the stories of the moments that shaped american history, both the well-known and least well-known. nothing shapes the narrative of what america represents like the president of the united states. tonight, we are so lucky to welcome to the stage three photographers who have worked as of

let's go to our white house correspondent kaitlan collins. kaitlan, we just saw president trump show up in the white house briefing room for the first time to make a pitch for the wall. what was that all about? >> reporter: well, wolf, he showed up in the with respect briefing room but neither the president for the press secretary took any questions from the reporters who had gathered in that room pretty abruptly when the white house announced overhead there would be a press briefing in five minutes. instead, the president came out, he made brief remarks about his argument for why he believes it's worth shutting the government down other funding his much-promised board eller wall, and then he invited members of the national border patrol council to come up and also make some brief remarks after what the president said was a meeting in the oval office but then the president, the press secretary and white house communications director all turned on their heels and left the room without taking any questions from the reporters in the room about t

this white house doesn't do that. really at the end of the day the only thing the white house press secretary has when it comes to talking to the media and public is credibility. and once that goes away or erodes, it is very, very hard to reget it. >> isn't it interesting, frank, that this fact check came from a fox news host. will this make the white house think twice do you think? >> well, yes fox matters when something like this happens. chris wallace is frankly one of the best. he is an excellent interviewer. and i thought it was very effective for him to say wait, i studied up. it was a way to inject himself and say i know the facts here and let me confront you with them. and that's what he did. it was very good television frankly, but also excellent interviewing. and the kind of interviewing that has to take place with people like this who are being as i said so man ipulative with the facts. the interviewer has to have those same facts, accurate facts, at their disposal and chris did. that it happens on fox whic

>> i assume i signed whatever sean spicer did in the white house. i assume i signed whatever corey lewandowski and -- >> are you worried about being sued? >> no. at this point all it is is tweets. i haven't seen any -- i haven't been sent anything on that. just kind of wait and see on that. >> why do you think the president is so upset? >> i think it probably has honestly more to do with the coverage of the book than it does the book itself. >> because he hasn't read -- >> he hasn't read it. he won't read it. and that's okay. i think that it's a point for him of frustration, the portrayal of the white house as being chaotic. and i do portray that in certain scenes. i think actually if he read the book he wouldn't be as mad. >> although let me just say, reading this paragraph -- this line you say, "the 15 months you were there it was the most cutthroat, toxic, mean-spirited, draining work environment you had ever encountered. >> yes. >> that's not good. >> no, it's not. and it was definitely a tough place to work. there's a reason the book is called

first let's go to the white house. kelly, i know that your colleague, kristen welker, just spoke to rudy giuliani on the phone. what is he now saying about his response last night about whether or not there was any collusion with the campaign? sounds like he's flip-flopping once again. >> he's pushing back that if it appeared he was changing his position that was only subconsciously and he is focused on really trying to cling to the client relationship here. he has also sort of summarized his conversation with our colleague, kristen welker, with a now written statement in just the last several minutes where the former new york mayor and private counsel to the president says i represent only president trump, not the trump campaign. there was no collusion by president trump in any way, shape or form. likewise, i have no knowledge of any collusion by any of the thousands of people who worked for the campaign. and the only knowledge i have in this regard is the collusion of the clinton campaign with russia, which has so fa

you talk about the general vibe in the white house. you call it a team of vipers. >> mm-hmm. >> here's what you write. so many people, i think, particularly critics of president trump say why would anybody work there knowing all of this? >> right. >> here's what you start with. most of us came to washington convinced of the justice of our cause and our principles, certain our moral compasses were true. proximity to power changes that. donald trump changes that. the once clear lines between right and wrong, good and evil, light and darkness eroded. how does donald trump change that? >> i think one of the things i try to do in the book is walk through not only all the scenes we get from the white house but my personal journey and what it meant for me. one of the things i realized is, you know, when you're around donald trump there is something about him -- the best way i could describe it is similar to people talk about steve jobs. there was a reality distortion field around steve jobs. when you are around the president everything seems

>> donald trump welcoming the clemson tigers to the white house today. that is our broadcast for this monday night as we start a new week together. thank you so much for being here with us. good night from nbc news headquarters here in new york. good night from nbc headquarters here in new york. >>> on the heels of two explosive reports that raised questions about his ties to the kremlin president trump is insisting he never worked for russia calling the idea a big fat hoax. >> confirmation hearings get under way for president trump's attorney general nominee william barr and democrats are expected to zero in on robert mueller. >> the real world impact of the government shutdown is being felt across the country. at airports travellers are facing lone lines as a growing number of tsa screeners call off work. >> good

let's start at the white house with our correspondent abbi phillip. let's start with the pelosi versus trump here. we have six days to go until what was supposed to be the president's state of the the union. he now says in response to the speaker i'm not surprised. it's a shame. democrats don't seem to care about crime and violence across the border. >> reporter: that's right. he says that he's not surprised. that's in part because one of the strategies the white house had at the beginning of this day was to force nancy pelosi's hand. make her decide if she's going to allow the president to give his speech in the capitol or is she not. i think the white house realized pretty quickly that the ball had to be really left in her court. but now that that speech has been cancelled, it's historic event. the president of the united states typically gives a speech in the capitol, whether it's state of the union address or joint address to congress, at the beginning of the year. pretty much every year. that's been an indisturbed tradition in washington for quit