jeb fights it out with trump. >> jeb doesn't really believe i'm unhinged. >> you're never going to be president of the united states by insulting your way -- >> i'm at 42 and you're at 22 so -- >> it doesn't matter. >> are they rivals or teammates? >> if i'm elected president, we will secure the border. we will build a wall that works. and i'll get donald trump to pay for it. >> i'll build it. >> here's a wonderful candidate. he's just fine. don't worry about it. >> raising rubio. the republican freshman senators take aim at each other. >> ted, you sport legalizing people who are in this country illegally. and ted supports doubling the number of green cards. >> for mark to suggest our records the same is suggesting like the fireman and the arsonist have the same record at

the scene of the fire. >> and feeling the burn. bernie sanders picks up a killer plug. >> thank you. in the profession i'm known as killer mike. i rap. i'm from the south. i like guns. i like guns a lot. >> so -- you know, i have gotten criticized, as you may know, from my opponents that i'm a hack of the nra and all that stuff. >> and i'm an nra member and have a tremendous respect. >> okay, so that's where we are. >> joining us today right here, but not killer mike. good day, everyone. i'm andrea mitchell in new york today. the fight for the republican party played across the las vegas stage with some of the best blows flying between

front-runner donald trump and jeb bush. jeb trying to throw punches instead of being the punchline. >> i think it's very sad that cnn leads jeb bush, governor bush, down a road by starting off virtually all of the questions, mr. trump this, mr. -- i think it is very sad. >> if you think this is tough and not being treated fairly, imagine what it is like dealing with putin and president chi or the islamic terrorism that exists. this is a tough business. >> oh, you're a tough guy, jeb. >> we need to have a leader -- you're never going to be president of the united states by insulting your way to the presidency. >> the so far i'm at 43% and you're at 3%. you're moving further and further, pretty soon you're going to be off the handle. >> what a show last night as they went at each other. what is the bottom line from

your take being out there as to winners, losers and whether jeb bush has revived his campaign? >> reporter: i think the bottom line is there was no outright winner from the night, perhaps except for the republican party with donald trump reaffirming his pledge that he will not mount a third party bid. not going to run as an independent. that was one of the biggest applause lines of the evening. but you had all these typical insults and interruptions and heated exchanges. perhaps the best ones that you just played a great clip from between donald trump and jeb bush getting into it back and forth. it really demonstrates how this campaign season has been unlike pretty much anything anyone including jeb bush certainly expected. jeb bush spending more than $35 million in tv ads. he has single-digit support to show for it. donald trump really trying to dismiss the bush campaign altogether. i think what we did see that was most telling was the exchange between marco rubio and ted cruz, not just one exchange but

multiple. on top of domestic surveillance, immigration, defense spending. this really tees up the storyline that we're going to be watching over the next few weeks into the new year. but most importantly what it did with cruz and rubio tangling, with the exception of jeb bush and rand paul, nobody taking on donald trump, it did sort of calcify this race where things stand going to the holidays with donald trump the strong front-runner as we have witnessed in the recent national polls, even after his proposed ban that would not allow non-american muslims from entering the united states. you have trump at one, cruz at two, the rest of the race a little more fluent, particularly the establishment wing, marco rubio had a good night, maybe not a great night. he was first time pressed on his immigration policy. chris christie doing well. the establishment lane up for grabs once again. >> and we have news on all of this, i want to bring in ron in

because we have news on the cruz/rubio mix-up or fight over national security. let me play the sound first of their argument over the surveillance by the nsa and their differing votes on this. take a look. it's cruz first then rubio later. >> what he knows is that the old program covered 20% to 30% of phone numbers to search for terrorists. the new program covers nearly 100%. that gives us greater ability to stop acts of terrorism. >> i don't think national television in front of 15 million people is the place to discuss classified information. >> so just now in the senate halls we're told by our senate producer frank thort, chairman of senate intelligence, republican chairman richard burr said their committee is looking into whether ted cruz actually violated classified information, which they are not permitted to disclose by being that specific

about how much metadata is now collectible under the new rules. jimmy peters, you follow this closely, this could be a real problem for ted cruz. >> it could be a real problem for ted cruz. it cold also, though, oddly enough be something to energize his campaign. because what this could end up looking like is another example of the washington powers that be, the establishment coming after ted cruz. because richard byrd is obviously an embodiment of the establishment here. who has ted cruz been fighting all along coming to washington? the establishment. what i think this debate really gets at is the larger fight that's going on in the republican party right now about america's footprint in the world. and ted cruz is trying to sweep in, especially in a state like iowa, and occupy that lane that rand paul had formally occupied where you had people who were more war-weary and less interventionists. what rubio did is kind of try to get in there and cut his legs out from underneath him and say, look, no, you're not really a

non-interventionalist, you would make america weak. >> if he did violate intelligence, it is rather serious and he cannot say it is just the mitch mcconnell republicans going up against me because i'm an outsider against them, because this really is a national security issue. but ron thorne, ted cruz and donald trump, the unusual relationship that played out on the stage last night. >> if i'm elected president, we will secure the border. we will triple the border patrol. we will build a wall that works. and i'll get donald trump to pay for it. >> i'll build it. >> you said senator cruz is not qualified to be president because he doesn't have the right temperament and acted like a maniac when he arrived in the senate. but last month you said you were open to naming senator cruz as your runningmate. >> i did. >> so why would you be willing to put somebody who is a

maniac -- >> i have gotten to know him over the last three or four days, he has a wonderful temperament. he's just fine, don't worry about it. >> so ron, what is the strategy behind this tactical truth between these two? >> i don't know. they are inching each other's way to the nomination. it also reminded me of the reality tv show than it is a campaign. it's like an episode of "survivors" with two candidates deciding to take each other to tribal on the final vote. and then hoping they win out. because eventually they got to take each other out. >> and halle jackson is in iowa with marco rubio and had an exclusive interview with him. let's play a little bit of that. >> i personally do not believe that it is good for america to have millions of people permanently living here who can never become republicans. who want to be americas and love america but cannot become

americans. i personally don't think that's a good idea. i recognize that my position is not a majority position in my party, maybe even not a majority position in large parts of america. it may not be possible to do that and we shouldn't let that stop us from doing the other things. >> peter alexander, you eluded to this in your first comments that immigration could come back to haunt -- i'm sorry, to ron fornier, immigration could be the issue that really trips up marco rubio with the republican right, because of his past co-sponsorship with chuck schumer and others. >> it's been a big mystery why it has taken this long for rubio's critics to come at him hard from the right on immigration. it's obviously an issue that hurts him in two ways. one, he tried to do something that most republicans think is amnesty, even though i think they are distorting that word. and second, he didn't get it done. so it's the worst of both

worlds. he's to the left of his right-leaning party and he was ineffective in actually creating policy. i want to go back to, real quick, to ted cruz. this is bad, also, politically, even just the allegation that he might have gone too far in exposing u.s. secrets. because don't forget who is probably awaiting the republican nominee, hillary clinton. and if it's bad enough that she might have jeopardized u.s. secrets in an off-the-books server that she didn't think was going to be made public. not excusing what she did, but here's a guy on national tv talking to the american public. if he got anywhere close to exposing confidential information and u.s. secrets, he's in a world of hurt. and it probably hurts the party and gives her yet another talking point to push back on her wrongdoing. >> and then chris christie, jeremy, chris christie had a pretty good night. let me play a little bit of his performance last night. >> yes, we would shoot down the

planes of russian pilots if in fact they were stupid enough to think this president was the same weakling that the president we have in the oval office is right now. >> well, i think if you're in favor of world war iii, you have your candidate. here's the thing -- my goodness, what we want in a leader is someone with judgment. i think when we think about the judgment of someone who might want world war iii, we might think about someone who might shut down a bridge because they don't like their friends. >> he kind of laughed that off. but bottom line, he was saying how he would patrol a no-fly zone taking a very hard line. >> he absolutely is. what is going on there, andrea, is while you have this battle between cruz and rubio on the one hand playing out for iowa where cruz is clearly ahead and rubio is trying to undermine that lead, between chris christie and marco rubio, you have the battle for new hampshire playing out. that's where we have to look ahead to. with chris christie in the race

as a strong establishment candidate, marco rubio can't become the nominee and they both know that. >> thank you so much. peter alexander also out in las vegas. and coming up, bern notice. democratic presidential candidate bernie sanders is joining us live to respond to his republican rivals and the democratic front-runner. you're watching "andrea mitchell reports" only on msnbc. real madrid have about 450 million fans. we're trying to give them all the feeling of being at the stadium. the microsoft cloud gives us the scalability to communicate exactly the content that people want to see. it will help people connect to their passion of living real madrid.

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donald is great at the one-liners. but he's a chaos candidate. and he'd be a chaos president. he would not be the commander in chief we need to keep our country safe. >> jeb doesn't really believe i'm unhinged. he said that very simply because he has failed in his campaign.

it's been a total disaster. nobody cares. and frankly, i'm the most solid person up here. >> jeb bush finally landed some of his punches against donald trump. but after running through a fortune in tv ads with little to show for the dollars spent, is it too little, too late? vin weber is a jeb bush supporter and adviser to the 2012 romney presidential campaign and is joining me now. great to see you. take off your jeb hat and put on the analyst hat, if you can, does jeb bush still have a play in this field, given how strange this campaign is going? >> sure. i can take off my jeb hat and still say with a straight face, yes, i think he gave his best debate performance ever last night. i have been around him at different events the last few weeks and he's the best that i have seen him. if a candidate is going to hit his stride at some point in the campaign, this is the time you want to do it. i think he'll do very well. there's no question that donald trump is the leader in this

race. there's no doubt about that. but only jeb bush took him on last night. i don't know how you defeat the front-runner if you don't take on the front-runner. >> well, if they are going to take on the front-runner, why didn't jeb do what many as viso visovise advisers were saying, take him on as the nominee. his lack of judgment, whatever jeb has said, the logical conclusion is i would not support you if you were the republican nominee. >> well, there's a lot of discussion about that among republicans. but i think we're more interested in getting donald trump to agree to do what he did last night, to say that he would support the republican nominee. so i don't fault the governor for that at all, but he took him on specifically with national security issues now emerging as the largest issue in the campaign. the governor gave a comprehensive speech on that at the reagan library last august. he was the first republican candidate to lay out a strategy against isis. and i think he came through very well last night. >> one of the national security issues that has now arisen is

that the republican head of senate intelligence, senator byrd, is acknowledging his committee is looking into whether ted cruz violated security last night when he specified the amount of metadata now available under the revised nsa collection. >> yeah, i don't know -- obviously, i watched the debate and know richard burr, i know senator burr would not politicize it and that's going to be the argument that nobody likes ted cruz in the senate, so this is political in nature. it's not. richard bu arrr is a serious chairman of the committee. if there's nothing there, he'll tell us that. but if there's something there, it's serious. >> what about this detaunt between ted cruz and donald trump? is it that cruz wants to inherit the trump supporters and doesn't want to take him on, despite what he has said clearly in private because we know that from the new york times audiotapes? >> i think the current term is a

bromance. i don't know where it goes from here, but they clearly are trying not to antagonize each other. they are clearly trying to establish some court of a repoire going forward. to be blunt about it, they are the two candidates that are most likely to lose to hillary clinton if they should become the republican nominee. so i guess they've got that in common. that's going to become a much important factor in the nomination race as we get close to voting. who can actually beat hillary clinton? >> vin, where does jeb bush win if you say the campaign isn't dead, we have chris christie picking up support in new hampshire, jeb is not taking off in new hampshire. he's clearly not going to win iowa. not south carolina. where does he start winning? >> well, first of off, governor christie did well last night and is gaining in new hampshire. i'm not sure that the traditional rules that say you must win in one of the early states necessarily applies this time. i think governor bush could win, but remember, the first 44

delegates on the republican side are chosen through proportional states. it's going to become a question of who can compete broadly across the whole country and who is accumulating the most delegates. and i think governor bush will be right in the mix in that from early on. >> vin weber, thank you so much. >> thank you, andrea. coming up, take a hike. we'll know in an hour and a half if the fed is going to raise interest rates for the first time in nearly a decade. not much doubt about that, but what will they say? you're watching "andrea mitchell reports" only on msnbc. in panama, which is a city of roughly 2 million people, we are having 5,000 new cars being sold every month. this is a very big problem for us with respect to fast and efficient transportation. it's kind of a losing proposition to keep going this way. we are trying to tackle the problem with several different modes.

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"the financial times," a person who knows more about the economy than anyone i know. >> thank you. >> we expect the feds to come out around 2:00 with their announcement and then the explanation is as important as the hype. >> absolutely. what people are going to be looking for is what this means, not so much for the day but for the next year. because essentially the economists are split between people expecting a dubbish hike. and that could mean that the fed will move once but then do nothing for quite a long time. and people say, actually, this is the beginning of a whole new hiking cycle. and so what we're seeing today is just the first step in the road that will take interest rates quite a bit higher. >> does it take a while for this to filter through to the economy? for it to show up in not only better savings for pensioners and others but also for higher rates on, you know, not only mortgages but car loans.

>> it's going to be a long time before we see it, i'm afraid. in terms of people taking out mortgages and car loans and things like that, yes, we probably will begin to see some kind of squeeze. but it's not dramatic. these are very small movements. i mean, let alone let's not forget they are talking about 25-point basis height. rates are still unbelievably low by historical standards. >> what is the dilemma if we have unforeseen events? another terror attack, if the eurozone starts breaking apart. we have other huge blows in the global economy. >> one of the reasons the fed has to act now is it essentially has run out of ammunition in some ways. and what they are hoping is they start to normalize policy a bit. then at least that will give them leeway to react if something really bad happens. but the great challenge of the fed is that in some ways many of the conditions cause them to sit

on their hands earlier in fall. the chinese markets still pretty wobbly. e merging markets, still problematic. inflation, ticking up a bit but still not really anywhere that anyone would be alarmed about. so the fact of not having an easy message to sell, that's why everyone is going to be watching janet yellin at 2:30 to see what tone she uses to describe all this. >> and right now as we speak, warren buffett in omaha is with hillary clinton. he's introducing her. he has endorsed her already contributing to her. and talking about the buffett rule that millionaires should spend 30% of their wages in taxes. let's listen to a bit of what warren buffett has to say. >> if you go forward to 1992, this group who has had their income increase seven-fold to

$335 million, but their tax rate instead of being 26.3% has fallen to 16.7%. so they got a one-third tax cut at the same time their income went up 7 to 1. the irs gives you a little more information. they point out to you that of those 400 -- >> so warren buffett and hillary clinton clearly trying to send a signal she's taking aim at the more populist approach. this is because of the challenge from bernie sanders. >> absolutely. the message she's putting out is she cares for capitalism. she's pro-market but about a caring vision where the rich pay taxes, but also very interestingly and a theme to look forward for warren buffett to echo in the coming weeks is the old fashioned capitalism, where investors invest for the long-term. not for quick profits and things. and a vision of capitalism where essentially you have a real

combination of earned advantages. >> well, it is really bernie sanders who has set the stage for this kind of debate in the democratic party. and we'll be talking to him in a moment. and we'll be watching the fed and see what you write in "the financial times." thank you so much, gillian. coming up, the commander in chief test, the republican debaters and hillary clinton lay out their plan to keep americans safe. and senator sanders responding to his 2016 rifles, rivals in both parties. that's coming up next on "andrea mitchell reports." this is brad.

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democratic party. >> i know there's no magic fix to this dilemma that will satisfy all these concerns, but we can't just throw up our hands. the tech community and the government have to stop seeing each other as adversaries and start working together to keep us safe. >> vermont senator and democratic presidential candidate bernie sanders joins me now. senator, great to see you again. thank you for being with us. >> my pleasure. >> let's talk about the tech era and what hillary clinton proposed yesterday. because you tweeted before her speech we can't return in terms of security, i believe strongly we can protect our security, excuse me, protect our people without undermining our constitutional rights. >> that's right. everybody knows that isis and al qaeda are huge international threats to this country. and i believe we have to crush

isis. i think we have to do it through an international coalition with muslim troops on the ground supported by the united states, western europe and russia. i think domestically we have got to do everything we can technologically to make sure that we do not allow a sleeper cell to develop or allow communication that takes place within isis grooups. but i do believe that we cannot as a nation going around to say we are a free society and yet undermine the constitution of the united states of america. so if the question, andrea, is do i believe we can crush isis, that we can destroy international terrorism but that we can do it in a way that preserves our constitutional rights? i do. so no one is arguing that we should not be vigorous, but some of us do believe we have a constitution and that freedom in this country is extremely important. >> do you believe that silicon valley should do more, should cooperate more with ghoft to try

to take down some of these isis communications? >> i do, absolutely. these guys understand the issue and have more influence and more understanding of what is going on than any other sector in the world. and they have got to play a vigorous role. but to destroy isis, we have got to do a number of things. and as i have said many times, andrea, in terms of our foreign policy, i think that the war, the invasion of iraq was a horrendous mistake. i don't want to see that repeated and don't want to see the united states alone going into the region. we need a strong coalition. king abdullah is right when he talks about this being a struggle for the soul of islam. muslim boots on the ground supported by the united states. here in this country, working with the high-tech companies to do everything that we can to shut off the communication capabilities of isis and sleeper groups. >> i don't know if you had time to watch the debate last night or read or see any of the

playback from the debate last night. i wanted to ask you about the republicans as well. >> sure. yes. >> here's a bit of ted cruz trying to explain his carpet-bombing comments from earlier. >> what it means is using overwhelming air power to utterly and completely destroy isis. you would carpet-bomb where isis is, not a city, but the location of the troops. the object isn't to level a city, the object is to kill the isis terrorists. >> of course, the point is that isis is in cities like mosul and ramadi and raqqah. so i'm not sure how you get around that, but what is your approach to the air war against isis? >> i believe we -- i agree with president obama, we are engaging in air strikes right now. i think, as i mentioned a moment ago, here is my nightmare when i listen to a number of republicans. and that is they have not learned the lesson from the war

in iraq. and they have not understood that the united states getting involved in perpetual never-ending warfare in that quagmire in syria, iraq, would be a disaster for the armed forces and the taxpayers of this country. the most important thing we can do is, yes, we need u.s. air power. you know what? we need to coordinate with the russians and u.k. and france, that needs to be a coordinated effort, but what is most important to me, if we are serious about destroying isis and winning this thing in a way that does not get us in perpetual warfare, there must be a coalition of involving the islam nations, king abdullah of jordan is right. this is a struggle for the soul of islam and the muslim nations themselves have got to be on the ground in a coordinated way destroying isis. >> well, there are two points there because the arab leaders, the sunni-arab leaders have talked a big game, but as ash

carter has been making it clear in his travels just now and john kerry, they are not delivering. they haven't even been flying missions, the jordanians, the saudis, plus do you really want to have the u.s. coordinating with russia when russia, according to ash carter just yesterday, is not targeting isis but targeting the anti-assad rebels? >> the answer is, in my view, yes, obviously we have huge differences with russia. obviously, we remain concerned about assad. but the major focus right now in my view is to bring as many countries as possible, including the muslim countries, including russia, let's not forget, andrea, they lost hundreds of people on an airliner blown up by isis terror. i think we have got to bring together that coalition understanding that there are geopolitical differences between

us. but if we do not learn the lesson of iraq, we cannot do it alone and cannot be the policemen of the world, that would be a tragedy. we need the coalition, yes, we need to work with russia and we need to work with iran. the major focus bringing countries together, muslim countries, western countries, russia, must be to destroy isis. that must be the focus of our efforts. >> and i also want to ask you, because i know you're going with keith ellison to visit a mosque today, what is your message in doing that? and your reaction, of course, to donald trump's ban on muslims and some of the other anti-muslim rhetoric coming from the other side? >> my reaction is that as a nation, we have struggled for hundreds of years with racism and with other forms of bigotry. we have elected an african-american as president, i

do not want to see the frustration and despair that so many people feel being picked apart by peel like donald trump, preyed upon in order to divide us again. a few months ago we were supposed to hate the hmexicans who according to trump were racis racists. we are strongest when we stand together. remember, when we talked to martin luther king jr., he said we judge people based on their character, not the color of their skin, not their religion. so the let's bring our people together to make sure that we have an economy that works for all people, that we are effective, effective in fighting international terrorism. let's not let demagogues divide us up by our religion or the country that we come from. >> bernie sanders, we saw you with killer mike, so you are leaving no stone unturned in your effort to reach out to as broad of a coalition as possible. senator sanders, great to see

you. thank you for joining us today. >> thank you. and a big deal to report from capitol hill, congress actually came to an agreement on a $1.1 trillion comprehensive spending bill last night. that deal will fund the government through october next year and extends tax breaks set to expire. included in the spending plan is health care benefits for 9/11 first responders. those benefits would be fully funded for the next 75 years. that follows a campaign by jon stewart who along with 9/11 responders came to capitol hill to directly lobby lawmakers and pushed strongly by kirsten jill grand and senator schumer from new york. this was covered extensively on msnbc by our own luke russert. coming up next, senator claire mccaskill with a review of her senate colleagues' p performance last night on the debate stage.

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ted cruz wouldn't take on donald trump last night in the republican debate, but he did have choice words about democrats as he tackled the topic of islamic terrorism. >> republican primary voters deserve to know what the kind of specificity and responsiveness that you delivered in your supreme court arguments how you disagree with mr. trump. will you spell that out with us? >> well, listen, hugh, everyone understands why donald has suggested why he has. we're looking at a president who's engaged in this double-speak where he doesn't call islamic radical terrorism by its name. >> why do you disagree with him? >> i'm reminded what fdr's grandfather said, he said, all horse thieves are democrats, but not all democrats are horse thieves. it's not a war on faith, it's a war on a political and there t

theorocratic ideology. i'm joined by kirsten gillibrand. well, where do we start. what is your defense of both the president and hillary clinton on this subject? >> well, i think my take from the debate last night is they are all pretty angry and all surfing off fear to get votes instead of laying out a credible strategy with a complicated subject matter. and i think, frankly, the bluff and bluster is so hollow compared to what senator clinton has laid out. secretary clinton has laid out in terms of how you go at this complicated and thorny problem of defeating isis. >> she does have some vulnerabilities, critics would say, because she was part of the administration whose policies in libya, syria and iraq helped

spawn isis with either the premature withdrawal from iraq for a lot of reasons and also the collapse of gadhafi in libya to give isis a base in a failed state. >> well, it's really to just do a one-liner around this. but if you really get into the policy, you understand that it's more complicated than that. for example, one of the reasons isis grew was because assad was murdering innocent sunnis in his own country in record numbers. tens of thousands of his citizens were sunnis. as a result, that encouraged the moderate sunnis to not really stand up to isis or fight against isis. in some instances, they joined isis. and it was that vacuum that allowed isis to really establish a real foundation in syria. so you can't talk about fighting isis without talking about assad.

that's too complicated for these guys. they would just rather say, we're mad, obama easterab's qui terrible, and that's irresponsible and doesn't reflect our values. >> what about going after silicon valley to be more aggressive in taking down isis sites? >> i think that's a terrific idea. one of the disconnects we have in america that a strong leader can address, especially not one irresponsible, a strong leader can go to the business community to say we have a problem. you've got to work with us here. you've got to give us tools, especially when we look at encryption. you can't carpet bomb silicon valley and force businesses to quit using encryption techniques. but you can work with them and find out a way forward so that these terrorists can't hide behind encrypted software or even some devices now that are

encrypted from the factory. >> i think the clinton campaign felt that they could have a really enthusiastic base among women. and what they are finding is what all of us are finding in the polling, that there's a generational divide that older women, college educated women are supporting hillary clinton. younger women are less so. what do you think -- what do you think the problem that she's had in attracting millenials is? >> well, the problem is they have not fully looked at the choices. there may not be a natural enthusiasm because the clintons have been around all their lives. and this doesn't feel as new and as different and historic as it does to some of us who understand what it means to have a woman president in light of the struggles we have gone through. but as this goes along, if their choice is somebody like marco rubio who says there should be no exception for the illegal abortion, even if you have been

raped. when you have someone like ted cruz to roll back the clock on equality for lesbians and gays in this country, i think you will see the millenial generation get fired up. and i think they will be part of a very important electorate that will put hillary clinton in the white house. >> and clinton trying to send a message for a general election campaign is in omaha. this is part of what she is saying right now in her appearance with warren buffett in omaha, nebraska. >> you know, some of them who may be of the republican persuasion, but we are not going to give up on them, we are going to keep reaching out to them. the first thing you can tell them looking under the lights is i don't -- >> what do you think about this going forward? >> on the economic message that's so strong, if you look at the last 35 years, we have had three republican presidents and two democratic presidents. everyone does better

economically under a democratic president. and that's just data. that's just the facts. we have had economic crises with republican presidents in place. we have had income growth and even balanced budgets in place with democrats. so clinton actually balanced the budget when he was president. so i think we need to look at the data and realize that a democratic president is good for our economy and good for americans in terms of their economic growth. >> claire mccaskill, thank you, senator, very much. >> you bet. thank you. coming up next, private messages. the fbi director reveals new information about san bernardino. they were much more secretive than previously thought. you're watching "andrea mitchell reports." combat dry skin with almond oil, be sure to get enough sleep, seven to nine hours each

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fbi director james comey said that the planning of the san bernardino attacks took part

in private messages, not on social media like first reported. peter alexander is here with more. >> when you stalk about the government, how could they have missed this? the fbi director said today simply there weren't any messages on social media. they were communicated by the internet, even before they physically met. talking about a mutual interest in jihad about martyrdom. but he never posted this on social media. so there was nothing for the government to miss. talking about the san bernardino shooting, no sign of any contact with foreign terror organizations before the shooting. no evidence that they were part of a cell. the other development here today separate and apart from san bernardino was an announcement by the department of homeland security that they are going to

make more information publicly available about the nature of the terror threat. jeh johnson announced this and the department has posted the first bulletin for the public. and this basically summarizes the threats as we have a lot of problems with foreign terror organizations trying to get people here interested in jihad. the details. and then a little further down it talks about what people can do in response to be prepared. be more vigilant. the goal of jeh johnson, i think he's been frustrated that the only time this sort of information gets out is when the department of homeland security sends a message to law enforcement and parts of that leak out. so they want to be more candid, more transparent, say what they're thinking is about the terror plot. i should emphasize here, andrea, they call this a bulletin. but there's no indication here of the specific terror threat they are trying to communicate. but they felt that the current terror threat system, which is basically two tiers of elevated or imminent, is inflexible and doesn't allow them to pass

information in a way to not alarm people. their goal here is to inform without alarming and to get people to be smarter about the whole terrorism issue. >> a work in progress, indeed. pete williams, thank you very much. >> you bet. that does it for us for this edition of "andrea mitchell reports." follow the show on facebook and twitter @mitchellroberts. "msnbc live with thomas roberts" is here next.

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hi, everybody. i'm thomas roberts. we begin today with politics and the republican candidates spanning out across the country and the airwaves today trying to frame their performance in tuesday's debate as a win. and beating on the candidate they see as their biggest threat to their nomination. none more so than marco rubio focusing his eye on ted cruz. some of cruz's own lines were thrown back at him at a rally in iowa. >> everyone on that stage talks

tough. it's easy. i can stand here this morning and say we're going to utterly destroy isis, we're going to blow them up and make the sand glow. that's easy to say. what are you going to do it with? jeb bush also hitting his favorite target, donald trump. and hear what he said about donald trump during an interview on "morning joe." take a look. >> it was a commander-in-chief debate in many ways. and i don't know if the front running candidate fared that well. >> chris matthews speaking with donald trump after the big debate and discovered the one question trump won't answer. is he still a birther? >> i don't answer that question because once i answer the question -- i don't want to answer the question. >> so we have a serious of reports covering the developments on the gop political front-runner, let's