for me it just adds more questions. it doesn't solve anything. he's the fall guy for that story and we need to move on. there's things we don't know well beyond the phone calls i had, we don't know. what makes their visiting the so far i've seen no efd of that, but the fact the national security adviser. i think that's the first time ever that a national security adviser. after only three weeks he's been removed because of connections with russians. it makes me wonder, when did these connections start. >> when you went to russia to have to have lunch with vladimir

putin, are there. there's a lot of questions about what role russia russia played during that campaign. >> we're talking a bauuntil the midnight hour on this broadcast. we thought we were reaching the 11th hour in the presidential campaign that has given way to the new presidential term, the presidency of donald trump

>> well, that's a great question because, of course, we want to know what the president-elect knew and did not know. we still don't know that. but it's not -- it's a hypothetical for me, brian, i served in a transition during the obama administration. we took a very firm line that there should be one president at a time. back during our transition, just to remind people, lots of leaders came to a g-20 summit in

washington. they all wanted to go to chicago. and meet with the president-elect. our policy was no. we don't do that. yes, we arrange phone calls. i arranged the phone call with then president medvedev during the transition but we didn't talk about policy. >> michael mcfall, former am bass tor to russia for this country. these days safely back in the confines, friendly confines of stanford on the west coast. thanks for calling in, ambassador. kristen welker among those working the story r us in washington tonight. kristen, as you saw all day long into the night in the white house, this was taking on currency, finally pushed over the line tonight by some journalism on the part of the "washington post," "new york times," politico, it took on the air late in the evening of something inevitable. >> it certainly did, brian. and the administration has been to some extent circling the

wagons on national security adviser michael flynn for days but it really reached a peak today. and, of course, this all comes amid revelations that flynn misled the vice president, other top staffers, about speaking to russia's ambassador about sanctions prior to the president getting sworn in. then, of course, tonight, this bombshell report -- >> we have lost kristen welker. okay. we have lost kristen. >> blackmail. >> kristen, we lost you for a long while. i hope you didn't say anything important there toward the end. >> i'll try again, brian. one more time, the point i was making is the administration had been circling the wagons for quite some time on michael flynn. amid revelations that he misled the vice president and other top staffers about speaking to the russian ambassador about lifting

sanctions before the president was sworn in and then of course it all reached a head tonight with this bombshell report, u.s. officials confirming to nbc news that the acting a.g., who's, of course, fired last month had actually informed the trump white house late last month that she believes michael flynn was subject to blackmail by russia. that was a stunning revelation. and ultimately the pressure just became too much and so tonight the revelation mat michael flynn did resign late this evening. now, he is going to be replaced in the interim by general heath kellogg who is, of course, recently served as national security counsel chief of staff. other people in the running to replace flynn are retired general david petraeus, as well as former vice admiral bob harword. he's a protege of matti s.

mattis is someone president trump has spoken so highly of from the very beginning even when he was interviewing him for the position that he currently holds. so i would look very closely at bob harword t. this is a decision that's under way and a major shakeup at the white house. >> thank you very much, kristen welker, we apologize for losing you for a moment. we made up for it in your reporting. kristen welker having worked this story all day joining us tonight. we're also joined by eli stoeckels who played a big role in the reporting of this story. eli, specifically for viewers who weren't with us at the top of the last hour, i was saying i knew this looked likely when i saw a piece you co-authored talking about the president's son-in-law kind of leading the infrm search for the people to replace the national security adviser who have not yet officially resigned. how does that bank shot work?

>> well, i don't think it was just jared kushner, i mean, this was a thing that it was taking place inside the administration that went above kushner all the way to the president doing more reporting on this over the last 24 hours or so. we understand that the president at mar-a-lago this weekend was grousing to people about mike flynn, expressing regret he had put him in this position and yet we also in talking to people today understand that the president still was very conflicted about what to do at the end of the day. he was very cognizant of the message that it would send if he were to have to let go of flynn. to make a change this early in the administration. he's, you knows, trying to calculate the negative press that flynn was bringing and the negative perception that might come from a night like this win y when you are basically getting rid of a top cabinet appointee in your first month. he was weighing all of this out. i think the news stories that hit tonight may have been the final straw for the president. this was a tough decision for

him really over 72 hours going back over the weekend. you could tell this administration publicly didn't really know how to spin it on his plane, on air force one on friday going down to florida, donald trump said, well, i'm not really aware of this yet. he was aware, he just didn't have a public response yet. and that continued through today where you saw the mixed messages as late as this afternoon. so really a white house in crisis. this white house, chaotic as things have been so far, you really do kind of see into the kitchen, it's like being in a restaurant, normally the kitchen is closed. here we have an open kitchen and the whole country is seeing the chaos taking place sort of behind the kitchen counter. inside the west wing and it's really, you know, we don't know at this point whether that kay yoos will die down. i think some of the people on the list possibly to replace flynn would settle some fears in washington among foreign policy and national security establishment types about having some more experienced steady hands leading the

administration's foreign policies but don't know which way they're going to go. >> all right, eli, since you invoked the restaurant metaphor, let's call an audible and talk about something back when we actually planned a broadcast tonight we were going to talk about. we just saw some pictures from it and it speaks to the foreign affairs and national security shop in this still young white house and that's what mayed o pt at mar-a-lago saturday night. the north koreans shoot off another missile. at the time our analysts, we have usually a lot of imagery and intelligence, not a lot we should like. we can tell certain things when someone on this planet blows something off and in those early hours, here is president trump dining with abe, the leader of japan, visiting this country. japan on anyone's list of top three nations to have grave concerns over anything fired off by the north koreans.

people start posting pictures on facebook with an air of you'll never believe what we're looking at. as aides and translators later in the meal start scurrying over to both leaders who remain at the table. not in full view of the general public, so much as guests of mar-a-lago and their guests but certainly co-mingled with servers and other civilians and at least one musician who played the piano throughout. the president was handed what we're told was a nominally secure cell phone. you see other cell phones being used there for their flashlight function while both leaders were shown documents and went over them. the two first ladies remained in conversation with their interpreters diametrically across from the table. a bizarre scene. a bizarre place to conduct not just foreign policy.

presidents are allowed to take their official guests to dinner, sometimes on rare occasions presidents own the restaurant. but this was a little bit of crisis management because of the news north korea committed earlier in the evening. >> then there was the hastily called press conference inside where donald trump really said one sentence. i think people were expecting to hear more from him. he just said the u.s. stands behind japan. sort of an incomplete thought and statement there in response to the missile test by north korea. but getting back to the security aspect of that, i mean, it's just stupefying to see the president and another foreign leader out there in the open having discussions pertinent to national security probably discussing classified information in earshot of bus boys and waiters. as you said, musicians. you can understand why club members who pay now $ 00,000200

year at mar-a-lago might take pictures and post them to facebook. a president talking about national security, how urgent it is in terms of how it relates to oth other executive orders related to immigration he signed and trying to portray his administration as, you know, taking a stronger stance toward the rest of the world, you know, it poses a lot of questions and should give people pause when they see the sort of cavalier attitude and sort of, you know, willingness to just do this out in the open. this is a president who is very aware of optics and imagery and i don't think he realized at the time how damaging the optics of him and the japanese prime minister sitting there getting information about a missile launch out in the open on the patio would be. >> eli stoeckels who played a big part in this big breaking story. we're still covering tonight. eli is white house correspondent for politico and a frequent guest on this broadcast. eli, thank you for tonight.

we realize we kept you over time and you actually do have a day job to return to. just on that last point before we go to a member of congress who's holding to talk to us, ali velshi, since you do cover this, this is the nexus of business and presidency really in great relief. >> right. >> when everyone around you in the restaurant works for you, when everyone in your view eating there pays dues to you to bring their guests for some face time with the president but i don't say that in an accusatory way. this is new territory for us. as i said jokingly earlier, we haven't had a lot of presidents who are restauranteurs. >> right. that was a huge interesting separate part of theater that would have been the content of much of our conversation had we not -- >> that's right. >> -- had to move on to about eight other stories in the interim. the idea that the president, again, i don't mean it in a bad way. i don't know that he realizes

how unusual that is and that that's not perhaps where you conduct important national security conversations. eli was talking about maybe they were talking about classified information. under normal circumstances we wouldn't know. maybe they were talking about the weather. we happen to know north korea had launched that test missile and he was being spoken to about that. there can't be a more important national security matter than a country, a rogue country that's not part of the nuclear nonproliferation treaty launching a nuclear missile. that is the conversation you are watching, you are witnessing happening at a public restaurant, or semi public. it's a private restaurant, but members of the public not sworn to protect classified information are standing there and watching that conversation happen. >> and i've heard people, critics throughout the day, say number one, think of the soft targets. employees. a bus boy. a server who could potentially be approached.

compromise. think of what people can lip read. and overhear. and think of for your dues at mar-a-lago, the de facto access that is for sale for face time on a random saturday night, especially during the winter months, with the president of the united states who also photo bombed a wedding along with shinzo abe of japan as part of their evening. we're joined now by a member of congress who all today was calling for the security clearance of the man who just resigned as national security adviser to the president to be pulled. eric swawell, democrat from california, is with us, member of the cia subcommittee of the house permanent select committee on intelligence. congressman, your reaction to tonight's news, this resignation, and in your view, what tonight triggers next.

>> good evening, brian. you know, removing one rotten plank does not compromise platform but i do think it has shown that there's clearly more to many of the questions around what were the personal, political and financial relationships that donald trump and his team had with the russian government? >> i need you to put a final part on that. i'll do it that way. is there a chance the general was acting on his own? was freelancing? what was the chance of that versus the chance he was acting on orders? >> it's clear "the new york times" reported this i veevenin he'd gone to russia in 2015, taken a payment without properly reporting it. on the day the sanctions came down from the obama administration, at least five phone calls and perhaps encrypted communications with the russian ambassador and

knowing that donald trump was helped by russia, that donald trump has talked about reducing sanctions and reducing the role of nato which is the best check on russia, knowing we don't know anything about donald trump's taxes or financial obligations, i think there's enough questions there that we should know what do they have on donald trump? >> well, here you are in the house of representatives as a democrat, squarely in the minority. along with your democratic colleagues in the senate. what can you do starting tomorrow morning and what will you do? >> well, we led a letter that received over 100 democrats flynn no longer have access to security information. there was a lot of pressure to make him step aside. we're going to make sure the american people get the answers i think they're asking which was what was going on before the election and after the election with donald trump and his team and the russian government? i also think there's a big role

that the press will continue to play here. it was the "washington post" and "the new york times" and the "wa wall street journal" that broke a lot of these stories about flynn and i don't believe he resigned because he believed it was a thing to do, he got caught and it was exposed in the press. >> congressman eric swalwell, democrat of california, thank you for being with us by telephone tonight. >> thank you, brian. >> tomorrow will, indeed, be interesting in washington as the reaction and fallout continues from this. mike duhame remains with us. mike, we were talking during the break, it's fair to share this, we were talking about it as a subject matter, the leaks coming out of this white house have really been breath taking in their speed, size, scope. it's just unbelievable. i've never seen anything like it. >> it's complete disloyalty to the president and to each other in an organization like this. when you're on this and you're the president of the united states, you're the team, eyes of the world around you, you have

to have some sense of trust to each other. certainly the principal, the president, has to have trust in the team around him, the people around each other have to know we have each other's backs. having been -- worked for several people, governors, mayors, senators, previous president, you have to have that kind of sense you can speak honestly to each other and not feel like you're going to read about it in the newspaper the next day. it's part of what leads to this kind of mess people think about, even is everything is going well inside, some places of the white house, it is, it doesn't appear that way. i think what people want is the president to show the type of leadership maybe they thought he was when they watched him on television, whether "the apprentice" during the campaign, he needs to demonstrate that leadership. makes no mistake, it starts at the top. show the loyalty down to the staff to the people around him, they will show it in return. right now i don't think they sense that there's any loyalty to each other. little bit of a feeling like every person is on their own. that willingness to lead shows you have greater loyalty to the journalists and to those

relationships you're cultivating before and after your time in the white house than you do to the president, that's completely unacceptable. >> what do chris christie and the president talk about tomorrow? you used to work alongside chris christie. >> if i knew i certainly wouldn't say -- >> it's disappointing. >> i will say to this point, though, as a financial journalist, this is where you see the difference between being a boss and being the leader. the boss can demand no leaks, the boss can fire people willy-nilly and no outside consequence doing so because nobody cares and virntually nobody's watching. being a leader is a different story and you're seeing some challenges. when you're on the campaign, you're your boss, keep firing your campaign managers until you find someone you like, there's no consequence. now you're seeing consequence, this is stuff people depend on, their lives depend on. i think maybe we're giving this white house a little too much credit if some things are working. you said some things are working in the white house. the food service is working. the air-conditioning and heating are working. >> i'm glad we agree on that. mike, one more question.

if you compare this to the term of our -- in ali's line of work, and that is t, the president is the ceo, white house chief of staff especially under a powerful fig wrur ure is the ch operating officer, really. keeps everything going. was not a good day for the chief operating officer with kellyanne conway and sean spicer delivering competing messages within 60 minutes of each other. ma do you do about that? >> i think there just has toobe open communication within the white house, within the senior staff. all senior staff members. they have to have that type of communication. has to happen obviously in realtime in a way that's not tested anywhere in any governor's mansion. this gets assessed in realtime. i think there has to be clear lines of communication. having worked for president bush, you knew where andy card stood, you knew where karl rove stood. i think right now at least from the outside it appears defuse in terms of what the

responsibilities are. if it appears that way inside, you begin do have problems in terms of who's responsible for what. >> we're going to take another break. our live coverage will continue right after this. that ride share? you actually rode here on the cloud. did not feel like a cloud... that driverless car? i have seen it all. intel's driving...the future! traffic lights, street lamps. business runs on the cloud... and the cloud runs on intel. ♪ i wonder what the other 2% runs on...(car horn)

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on the fourth monday of this still new presidency, this new presidency has claimed its first victim. michael flynn. former u.s. army three-star general, intelligence specialist most of his adult life who

became the national security adviser to the president is now the former national security adviser. a dustup, a ruckus over russia, has done him in. interestingly, some have already observed tonight, this leaves him vulnerable should senators mccain and graham, to name two on the republican side of the u.s. senate, senate foreign relations, should they have some questions for him. now that he is no longer an employee of the west wing. there is no executive privilege that would bar him, i don't believe, from raising his right hand and swearing to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, to direct questions on the hill. perhaps some national security matters would be heard in executive session and closed session, but this will get interesting, but we're getting ahead of ourselves a bit. his resignation happened just right around the 11:00 hour on

the east coast. about 90 minutes ago. andrea mitchell was our journalist who confirmed for nbc news the story. andrea also read for us his letter of resignation when it andrea, not to be gross about it but is it mostly boilerplate? is there any word choice in there that caught your eye? >> well, inadvertent. unfortunately he said he writes because of the pace of events, i inadvertently briefed the vice president-elect and others with incomplete information regarding my phone calls with the russian ambassador. i have sincerely apologized to the president and the vice president and they have accepted my apology. he goes on to talk about his honorable military service and in fact he had a stellar career as an aide to general mcchrystal. he was very well regarded until he was promoted, ironically, by

general clapper, to be the head of defense intelligence agency and by all reports, once he took over that job, he changed from the man that hay had known in the field who had done so much in combat duty and had been a really star intelligence officer. i do want to hasten to add it was kristen welker who first broke the story, i happen to be preparing for this broadcast. so i was the beneficiary of her brilliant reporting and also her colleagues peter alexander, the whole team, halliethis effort tonight. i don't want to be any means take credit. it was a team effort. >> andrea mitchell making her first repertorial outing as a rookie, we wish her well with the network to come. andrea, back to the letter. inadvertent. let's go with some -- it is an unusual word. i am no competition for webster,

but it has a connotation of something blurted or accidentally revealed -- >> exactly. >> -- maybe incorrectly briefed. maybe incomplete. i don't know. >> but, i mean, you're absolutely right, brian, because the fact is he didn't misspeak. it wasn't inadvertent. he told the vice president, the chief of staff, i believe, as well, sean spicer, who is briefing the press which means briefing the nation, and the world, that the only thing discussed in that phone call, the only issues discussed in that phone call, was christmas, a condolence call, setting up an appointment for a telephone call, and a future meeting potentially between -- >> the principals. >> -- the president and vladimir putin. the fact that he left out sanctions is just remarkable. and according to all of our reporting, the transcript of

that call indicates that one of those calls, and thereere my calls, several, and texts as well, that one of those calls on december 29th, the day the sanctions were announced, was solely about focusing on the sanctions. that is not something one forgets. and i cannot imagine that he did not brief somebody in the white house about the substance of that call. the other thing is his relationship with ambassador kisliak. it russia and elsewhere around the world. they met in 2013. they had a pretty close relationship. we know he was in moscow in 2015 at the gala with vladimir putin pop so michael flynn was pursuing his avout interest in having a better relationship with russia which is well and good, but he certainly was much too close to the flame. >> andrea, back to those two names, and i will let you go an prepare for what's going to be another day of reporting

tomorrow. and that is john mccain and lindsey graham. i mentioned them both. i mentioned them together intentionally. they are both confounded by this new kind of talk about russia and putin. and they both wake up every day angered by it at a very deep basic level. what are they, do you imagine, going to have to say about this? because to them, just like with a lot of journalists, this story started tonight, the meter starts running on this story tonight. >> absolutely. and there's no love lost, of course, between john mccain, lindsey graham and donald trump. and so at this moment, they may choose their shots carefully because i think they want to work in this white house on the foreign policy issues. they are gravely concerned. they've said publicly. you know very well how they feel about some of the issues and some of the approaches that the administration has taken on

foreign policy. so at a time when you've got benjamin netanyahu arriving, when you've got the munich security conference this weekend with all of the players, pence and the national security adviser was supposed to be there, but also defense secretary mattis, there's a meeting in bond that the secretary of state is going, his first foreign trip, he's leaving on wednesday morning. for the g-20. so there are meetings in germany, interestingly, with all of the international group just this week. so, and generally john mccain does go to the munich security conference, i'm pretty sure he would be going this time as well. so there's going to be an effort to try to right this ship. i'm not sure how aggressive they're going to be at least in public. i don't know that they're going to want to do a lot of i told you sos. i am told that a number of other republican senators are also in this boat. we've heard from rand paul.

i believe that foreign relations chairman corker has not been happy about a lot of this and so you've got a growing group of republicans who are going to align with some democratic critics, as long as the democrats pick their shots and a lot of this is going to be investigated. there are already two investigations, senate and house intelligence led by republicans and led by republicans who did not brush this under the carpet when the administration thought they would. >> andrea mitchell in our washington bureau. a long day's journey into night. andrea, thank you so much for your reporting. let's bring in indira lakshmanan, columnist for the oston globe." tonight, you've spoken toome veterans, veterans of this business specifically tonight. what have you found? >> that's right. in the last hour, brian, i've spoken to former national

security officials for both the obama and george w. bush administration. what they said to me is that it really strange kcredulity donal trump, himself, would not have been aware of the content of michael flynn's calls with the russian ambassador. given this was all happening at the time president obama was imposing sanctions on russia for russia's conduct during the american election in favor, by the way, of course, as we now know, of donald trump, you know, just look at chronology. december 29th, the sanctions were imposed. december 30th, vladimir putin comes out and says even though all these diplomats have been expelled, we're not going to take retaliatory action as he would have been expected to take, and donald trump immediately tweets out he's very smart, i've always said he was very smart. it's really hard to say both republican and democratic former national security officials who've worked in the white house said to me that donald trump

would not have known about the content of michael flynn's call. and one thing you talked a lot with andrea about the wording of that resignation letter. one thing that i thought was striking about the wording was nowhere in it does he say that he misled the president about the content of his call. and i thought that was an interesting omission. and i think that it's sort of going to leave it very much in the lap of democrats and republicans alike in congress to have to look into this. i mean, there's been talk all along about what kind of investigation needs to be done. you know, you made this great point about saying that tonight the meter started running tonight on this. brian, i would argue that the meter started running on this during the election as soon as the u.s. intelligence agency said actually russia intervened in the election, the meter started running way back then. i wrote a column january 6th titled "what did the president know about russian hacking and

when did he know it?" i think it's kind of long overdue for there to be an investigation to find out what was known. >> indira, the first person i heard use that phrase tonight was a veteran republican. we're reminded, of course, howard baker was a republican asking it about a fellow republican. then-president richard nixon. you've got people, indira, all over this country walking around saying the things people say like it seems like the fix was in. why all this new talk about why are we supposed to like russia and vladimir putin? people have found it strange. people who don't live and breathe politics like you and i do, and just are pursuing their lives. people are going to find it really strange that this talk now takes on more urgency and more currency starting tomorrow. people asking real questions of this new president along the lines of what did donald trump know and when did he know it? >> it's been bizarre all along, though, brian. i mean, i would say the media

has been writing about it since 2016. all through the campaign. we knew and wrote about michael flynn's ties to r.t. about the money he was getting paid. about the fact that he was seated at the same table as vladimir putin at this dinner. about the speaking fees he took, et cetera. so, you know, a lot of this was known. i mean, what has really caught him up here was the fact that he apparently was not truthful with the vice president. this is what has caught him up. and he had to take the fall. now the question is, how is it possible that the president, himself, did not know about that? and, you know, will this eventually make its way back to the president? and this is where i've had both, as i said, republican and democratic former white house national security officials say to me, sort of ptuttingly, they think it's eventually going to track its way back particularly when you had former cia director john brennan, former dni, you know, you had john brennan, you have sally yates, you had all of them coming together and saying

we've got to tell the white house about this. you know, they wanted to talk to donald trump, themselves, about it before the end of the obama administration. >> our friend indira lakshmanan, thank you for being part of our coverage tonight. >> thanks, brian. >> i'm sure we'll talk to you more as this thing develops. now to a journalist who probably gets most of the credit for the story we have been covering all evening tonight. adam entes of the "washington post" is with us by telephone. adam, i've seen no fewer than three interviews with you earlier this evening as you were describing this story, you posted this evening for the woe "washington post" up. one aspect i'd like to walk back for our view e that is how was the now former national security adviser, general flynn, said to be vulnerable to blackmail? >> well, basically what happened here is he had a conversation

with ambassador kisliak of the russian federation and at the end of the conversation being picked up obviously by the fbi that had a wiretap on kisliak and picking up flynn incidentally. at the end of that, kisliak went back to moscow, sent them a cable, sent them, you know, whatever, an e-mail, which was picked up by the nsa in which he basically notified moscow about his talks with flynn. so basically moscow knew that the conversation with flynn was about the sanctions or included in the discussion about the sanctions. this is what the intelligence community thought. so when vice president-elect pence and other administration officials appear on television and make these public statements saying that had spoken to flynn and categorically said the sanctions issue was not

discussed, for people like john brennan, cia director at the time, james clapper, the dni, the director of national intelligence at the time, and sally yates who was deputy attorney general at the time, they knew this was basically -- that the russians thought they maybe had something on flynn. by going to the white house, trump white house which is what they wanted to do but which comey initially did not want them to do, the fbi director, they were hoping to basically defuse the ability of the russians to use this leverage. >> adam, knowing there is a transcript out there, probably several, in someone's hands tonight, knowing that we have already seen leakers weaponized, the likes of which i don't think you and i have ever seen, how -- how do you go about reporting

the what did donald trump know and when did he know it question? >> i don't know, i mean, that's a very good question. i don't know the answer to that. you know, certainly one would think that as national security adviser, he had permission from trump before he took the call and placed the call to kislyak and had some -- certainly after the fact would have provided a readout of the call to others. that would be suspected of somebody in his role, whether that happened in this case, i don't know, and i'm not sure that that information is available. you know, this is obviously going to be the subject of ongoing investigations, both senate investigators and potentially the fbi, themselves, which, you know, the white house had learned at the same time they found out about what yates conveyed to them, the fbi was looking at these communications

and this relationship. so i think, you know, it's too early to say where this goes. >> and one more question that our viewers might have, hearing you talk about intercepts that caught up a friendly, in this case, our own guy, explain to the viewers how commonplace that is in this line of work. >> yeah. i mean, you know, for somebody like kislyak, a career ambassador, they would know that their communications are being monitored by the fbi. just like our ambassadors in russia know that their communications are being monitored. their houses may be bugged. they may be followed every time they leave the embassy. it's the same thing for kislyak. he knows this. flynn is a career intelligence ficer. he's been reading these intelligence reports for much of his career which is, you know, mystifying for some officials as to why he didn't think of that

when he had conversation and then later mischaracterized or allegedly mischaracterized what he discussed with ambassador kislyak to pence and others. he knows this very well. for the viewers to understand what's going on here, the fbi with a court order, fisa warrant, is monitoring the ambassad ambassador. they're not monitoring flynn unless they had a fisa, a warrant to monitor flynn's communications which we have no information to suggest was the case. and so this is something that is going on every day. it's -- there are constant agents of the fbi who are listenilist listening to these kislyak communications with everybody and collection is the communications of a u.s. person who's not subject to the warrant that gets accidentally sucked up as part of that collection. and when that information is circulated around the

government, it's called minimization. they won't use the name of the person in the intelligence report, it will just say, for example, in this case, probably something like transition official number one or something along those lines. and so, you know, that is done in order to protect the privacy of flynn in this case, but for senior intelligence officials, for the fbi agents, they can see who it is in many cases. they can identify who it is and often from the context of the conversation, you can tell who it is, for example, kislyak may describe flynn as the incoming national security adviser. and so it's pretty clear who he's talking to. >> adam entous who played such a huge role in breaking what became this big story we're covering tonight. really, as part of what is becoming a great era for, of all things, the newspaper reporting business at both the "washington

post" and their rivals, "the new york times." adam, my thanks to you. we realize it's very late at night on a big day for you. with another big day awaiting tomorrow. we'll take another break in our coverage tonight. when we come back, someone who knows the man who resigned from office 24 days into his new job and leaves a vacancy now in the trump white house west wing. that's when our coverage continues. (vo) this is not a video game. this is not a screensaver. this is the destruction of a cancer cell by the body's

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still breaking news. the resignation just tonight of u.s. army retired three-star general, michael flynn who was serving in a highly visible position for the new president. he was national security adviser which in past presidencies in the modern era has really been the first pair of official eyes presidents wake up and see and the first person they hear from, especially in the post-9/11 era in america. and we're joined by a friend of ours and frequent guest of ours who knows the general well. retired four-star u.s. army general, barry mccaffrey, gave 32 years of service to his country. wounded multiple times. decorated multiple times. here's a hint, he doesn't scare easily. he's a member of the u.s. army rangers hall of fame. general mccaffrey, i remember once you said to me on our broadcast that general flynn was

the best intelligence officer of his generation but you also had a lot of criticism about his methods serving donald trump. how do you greet this news tonight? >> well, i think it's the right move to get him out of public office. something went badly wrong. in the years of counterterrorism operations in iraq and afghanistan, he and general mcchrystal who were the most lethal combination imaginable, and, you know, flynn was just really good at his work, but that whole notion that the republican national convention was so inappropriate for a military officer and then finally, brian, remember the tweeting of the pedophile ring. >> yeah. >> a basement -- at that time on nbc i characterized that conduct as demented on the part of general flynn. he got back to me and i counsel him about handling his anger and

think about governing, but that was a real signal something was sadly wrong with him personally. now, the other aspect of this story that i've been listening with fascination at some of the reporting, it is not believable to me that the national security counselor with multiple phone calls to the russian ambassador wasn't back-briefing the president at least with a wink and a nod. at the time, i don't think as a transition team they even thought they were doing anything wrong. in a logan act, come on, nobody's ever been prosecuted, 200 years. so i would assume that the president had known about these conducts and the scope of the conversation. more to follow, as you say. now that he's out of office, the senate can subpoena him, get sworn testimony and ask him what was going on. >> and he potentially has a

really interesting story to tell, especially when it's john mccain doing the asking. >> well, no question, and, you know, vice president pence may well have been told a falsehood. you know, again, having watched the weasels work in washington on multiple administrations, i would have assumed that that was a deniability factor, where they said, well, we'll put the vice president out there deali with this news headline, it will go away and that's what was going on. this is very dangerous business. you know, there's a lot of comment on mr. abe and the president at mar-a-lago and the inappropriate conversation. presidents travel, as you know, overseas with a couple of thousand people domestically with several hundred. normally the national security adviser security personnel, you know, classified communications

capability, very bizarre. this white house is not even remotely functioning yet as it should. >> yes, we noted as did reporters who were along, the wedge salad was served and cleared and made way for the first course all of which was accompanied by this scurry over a missile launch in north korea. general barry mccaffrey who i neglected to point out in his years as drug czar for the united states gave him just enough experience in washington to appreciate a proper use of the word, weasels. general, thank you. it's always a pleasure. what something tell me we'll be talking to you more in the next 24 to 48 hours. ali velshi, mike duhame remain with us in the studio. closing thought after the night that was, this breaking news story, i guess we should have felt coming all day, all night. >> had this not happened, we would have been talking about adam entous' story in the

"washington post," somewhere between january 23rd and january 31st when she was fired, sally yates, the acting attorney general along with other law enforcement intelligence leaders went to the white house general counsel and told them flynn had been talking to the russians and could be compromised as a result. by january 311st at least the white house general counsel knew and i think the chances of the white house general counsel not having told the president or vice president are about as good as me growing a full head of hair by morning. i think this is where our story has to go. >> first of all, never going to count him out, anyway. mike, you're a loyal republican, yes. this means one of the takeaways from tonight was so if nothing had come up, if this story had never appeared in the "washington post," were you just going to not tell anyone ever? >> i think it's a great question. i think we have to see right now what type of leader the president is and what type of people he has around him. this is a crisis. there are a lot of questions to be answered as well as running a government, filling a lot of positions and a lot of other things that can't all be put on the back burner. in many ways it's an opportunity

for them to show the type of leader he wants people to believe that he is and we'll find out. i think we'll all watch and see what happens. >> while they have enjoyed a longer life span than some job categories like the gunner at combat in world war ii, national security advisers to the president have an average tenure, i'm told, of 963 days in office. michael flynn's tenure was 24 days. and will be much talked about as we go through this new week. as i said earlier this evening, looking at the scope and scale of this russia story,s russia aspect of our entire presidential campaign, by one way of looking at it because of the gravity of this story, this resignation tonight in ways the questions will just now be starting. and, again, for those just joining us as the time zones

stretch to the west, michael flynn, three-star u.s. army retired general, has left, has resigned. the first major name to depart this brand new presidency 24 days into the trump presidency. there's been an acting director named. we'll learn more about a permanent director as the hours and days go on. our coverage goes on. joy reid is set to take the next hour of live msnbc coverage into the night as monday becomes tuesday across the united states.

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[howling continues] breaking news tonight, nbc news news tonight. nbc news has confirmed donald trump's advisor lieutenant general michael flynn has resigned. the news comes four days after general flynn may have discussed easing sanctions against russia before he spoke to the ambassador before trump was inaugurated. we learned from two trump senior source he the justice department had informed the white house late last month that it believed general flynn could be subject to blackmail by the russian government. in a statement released tonight general flynn said, quote, unfortunately because of the fast pace of events i inadvertently briefed the vice president-elect and others with the incomplete -- with incomplete information regarding my phone calls with the russian ambassador. i have sincerely apologized to the psi