candidates, i think flipping the house is certainly realistic. it's a goal that we can set for ourselves. >> is the party organized to do that? >> well, we're working on it. i'm working on it. >> we don't have a lot of time here. >> yeah, well, you know, you got two very good political strategists running the senate and the house for democrats. nancy pelosi and chuck schumer. they know how to win elections. they're incredibly focused, tireless and effective. so, honestly, i am -- i'm hopeful about the house and i'm working on it. i have a new organization called onward together, and i'm helping some of these new groups that have sprouted up online to recruit candidates, run candidates, help candidates go to town halls, expose -- >> hi, everyone. i'm nicolle wallace. this is "deadline white house." we've been listening together to the woman who didn't quite make it to the white house, very candid hillary clinton offering political advice to her own party and airing grievances

about her defeat in the election. we'll be talking to kara swisher, the woman on the stage interviewing secretary clinton, later in how. it's hk. we have breaking news to tell you about. nbc news learned bob mueller has cleared former fbi director james comey to testify before the senate intelligence committee in a matter of days. joining us now, our own ken dilanian, national security reporter for nbc news, and julie heshfield davis who covers the white house for "the new york times." ken, you and i got on the phone earlier today when the news first broke and you sort of pointed out the drama of this moment. is some thought perhaps bob mueller in an effort to sort of turn the heat down on some of this wouldn't permit jim comey to testify in an open hearing but that's exactly what he did today. >> that's right, nicolle. the issue not only not turn the heat down but there was some speculation that mueller may not have wanted comey to alert potential witnesses to what his story is on some of these matters. after all, there's been allegations some people view as obstruction of justice. recall, comey is saying through

intermediaries that president trump asked him to drop the investigation into mike flynn. that he called him to dinner and ask the him to pledge his loyalty. and so we have these other stories about trump asking other intelligence officials to say there was no collusion. so, there was some worry an concern that mueller would say, you know what, jim, maybe you shouldn't testify after all. that's not what happened. our reporting is mueller has cleared comey to testify publicly. it could happen as early as next week. although that may slip, we're told the schedule hasn't been firmed up and it promises to be one of the more dramatic hearings in recent washington memory, nicolle. >> julie, you're well sourced inside our country's law enforcement agencies. the last we saw of jim comey, he was mowing his lawn, sent a gracious letter to his fbi staff, the last they saw of him was when he was boarding that pla plane. he learned he'd been fired by this president while he was addressing staff in los angeles. but since that moment, donald trump in front of russians has called him crazy, he called him a nut job, and he said that his

firie ining relieved pressure o donald trump in terms of allowing him to work with more ease with the russians. what is pent up inside of a jim comey or is it all just strategic and a brick-by-brick case that he'll lay out when he testifies? >> well, i think there was clearly a lot of pent-up worry on jim comey's part in the weeks after donald trump became president. which we know he documented in internal memos and made sure there was a record of and so i think, you know, he obviously has quite a lot to say. we've heard some of it through, as you mentioned, leaks of some of what's in these memos about his takeaways from these confrontations with the president who he was asked to do things he felt uncomfortable with, he felt he was being influenced or there was an attempt to influence him that was really something outside the bounds of the relationship between a president and the fbi director. so he obviously does have a lot to say, and it's interesting ken

is talking about how there was an anticipation that maybe jim comey would have been asked to keep quiet during this investigation at least until mueller had a chance to interview him, himself. i know, you know, there's been a lot of concern on capitol hill among republicans and democrats that the special counsel investigation was going to essentially shut down a lot of these public disclosures that jim comey clearly otherses have what wnt on. what we saw today, that is not going to happen. this is another moment where the white house has to deal with an account of these issues they can't really care to have public right now. >> so, ken, if you just look at the last 12 hours, president trump is back in the white house after his trip and he's back with his gateway drugs of cable tv and his twitter handle. how do you think seeing jim comey, who he thought he had washed his hands of, testify before congress, we know that he's an effective messenger for his own case, whether you agree with it or not can be debated.

how do you think this white house is going to deal with this spectacle of what will surely be road block coverage of a fired fbi director who the president, as i said, called a nut job an crazy, testifying in an open session? >> well, we learned today that one way they're going to try to deal with it is to not answer anymore questions about it from the podium. sean spicer said he referred questions today to the outside counsel, who's handling russia matters for president trump. but, you know, let's remember that, you know, according to some very good reporting in "the new york times," jared kushner and others, advised president trump that firing comey would be a popular thing, a political win among democrats. they appear to be blindsided by the incredible reaction to this and that's leaving aside, you know, these memos and this notion that comey is putting forth that president trump didn't seem to understand that there's a tradition of independence granted to the fbi director and that it's not really appropriate for the president to be asking for loyalty or asking for status

updates for investigations or suggesting directions of investigations. so, you know, it's kind of a mystery to me how this white house is dealing with it but it's not good news for them. >> julie, i want to put a question to you about what sort of legal peril there could be for a white house where we now know that the investigation reaches into the highest levels of the west wing senior staff. highest levels of the president's family. you've got the president this morning tweeting away about why carter page hasn't been his former aide who on the one hand donald trump said he hardly knew, on the other hand in a "washington post" board meeting said it was the first national security adviser he could game. what is the peril from a legal standpoint or from the point of view of our law enforcement of the president continuing to sort of wave a red flag in front of very serious investigators and very serious prosecutors now looking into this question of collusion with russia? >> well, i think there's a big risk. i mean, we do know that his counsel both internal and external has privately advised him that he probably shouldn't be tweeting, that any tweet or

sort of comment of this nature could be seen as a piece of evidence in this investigation. which we know does, or may touch on obstruction of justice.says, particularly if you can imagine jim comey out there making his story public and it's not likely to be very flattering to the president, you could imagine him sitting there and really wanting to sort of engage on social media in the way that's natural for him and the way that he communicates with his supporters and his followers. it's going to be a tough job to get him not to do that. but the other issue is that, you know, there are very few people in this white house who are going to be completely walled off as much as they may try to wall themselves off from public statements on this, from possible legal jeopardy and whether or not they were a witness to anything, whether or not they were present for anything inappropriate, they are, many of them going to have to retain counsel really watch what they're say and what they're able to learn about what the president is doing because they can't be in a position or don't want to put themselves in

a position where they're privy to conversations that could be in this investigation and that is a really bad place for any white house to be. it's very difficult to get anything done to have the conversations that you have to have, the sensitive conversations around poli policymaking, everything else, when there's that kind of pressure hanging over you. >> yeah, and nicolle, remember in every special counsel investigation that i can recall, whether it's, you know, ken starr, into the clinton matter, or patrick fitzgerald about the disclosure of a cia name, the crimes that end up being charged had almost very little relation to the underlying thing that was being investigated in the first place. and that's the real peril here for the trump administration, and for the people that are caught up in this investigation. these dozens or however many fbi agents that are now looking through financial records, communications, are not going to ignore any other crime that they find. >> all right. ken dilanian, julie davis, thank you so much, two of the best reporters on the beat. joining me at the table, jen palmieri.

eli stokols, reporter for the "wall street journal." michael allen, special assistant to president george w. bush, reminding me what a pill i was in some meetings. joins me today with his great perspective. eli, i want to start with you, though, because this question of legal jeopardy is a real one. i mean, michael and i worked in a white house staff that came under investigation from special prosecutor pat fitzgerald looking into the leak of valerie plame's name and i didn't have clearance at the time that her name was disclosed so i was never wrapped up in it, but i ended up handling all the press around it because i wasn't. what is it doing to this white house -- i can't imagine this white house more paralyzed but is this serious legal question hanging over them? is it creating more paralysis? >> yeah, they seem spooked, just watchi ining sean spicer the la couple days, he doesn't want to answer questions or say anything referring reporters to we'll find out when the president says what he's going to do with the fbi director, refer the questions about the russia investigation to the outside counsel. the outside counsel in my

reporting, what i understand, kasowitz told trump he'd take the job, if trump quits tweeting recklessly about these things. >> kasowitz is the final lawyer. >> they're apparently going to be referring these questions to him. that's going to be tested as julie and ken said next week when comey is on the hill because the "wall street journal's" reporting is combny has been cleared to testify specifically about the conversations in which president trump reportedly told him i hope you can just let this flynn thing go. that's the central piece of this potential obstruction of justice case that robert mueller may put together and may be looking at. but if he's on tv and that's what he's talking about, contradicting the president's own version of events and putting him in peril, we've seen this pattern of donald trump responding impulsively to a lot less than that. >> what does it tell you that bob mueller has allowed comey to testify? i mean, to all -- >> it's surprising. >> on this narrow question of

the president's role in trying to effect or shut down, the way i see it, i don't know how else you could view it, what does that tell us about bob mueller? >> that's a good question. i mean, this is the person who everybody has said is beyond reproach -- >> right. >> -- as a person who believes in the law. en unlike comey who's been criticized from inside and outside the bureau as someone who's too conscious of his public image and perception, mueller is a guy who plays it straight and maybe there's recognition in this this is already out there in the public domain, there have been multiple leaks and so better at least in a limited way for comey to go out and state clearly on the record what he knows rather than relying on articles that the white house is just saying are based on, you know, anonymous sources and made up. >> comey's discussed this case and the hillary clinton case at every instance along the way. the idea that all of a sudden we were going to -- >> going to clam up. >> -- clam up was insane. he has a story to tell as mike

flynn's lawyer might say. and comey's going to tell it. i don't think necessarily that he's a showboat as some people like to call him. >> the president. >> but he definitely wants to get out there and tell his story and be able to explain and shed light on what he believes is a protection of his reputation and a protection of the bureau. >> i do find it puzzling, though, because i feel like -- bob mueller knows what he's doing, gym jjim comey knows whas doing. this is unusual law we have two actors near the administration who are competent. they've thought this out. maybe comey is going to say i never felt pressured that he was going to thwart my investigation. maybe that's what comey is going to say -- >> you seriously think that's what he's going to say? >> i don't. i find it odd that mueller said it's okay to do. i think we should think more broadly about what -- comey may surprise us. >> have you come full circle on comey? >> no. >> where are you -- i feel like you're farther along, though, than your old boss. >> it's a matter of public record because of wikileaks that i didn't think he was a great

choice for fbi director because, you know, why do we -- the left loves jim comey because he stood up to the white house chief of staff, the white house counsel, during the bush administration. >> right. >> these are not -- and told the press about it. these are not qualities you want. >> the moment -- >> these are not qualities you want in fbi director and i think that he tries to, in his mind, protect the bureau. i think, you know, my mind, he's more interested in his own reputation. but he is -- so i think he has an outsized sense of what his role should be in any given situation. but he's very good, he has good cards and he plays them very well. >> you think hillary clinton wants to see him testify? >> sure. why gnot? >> absolutely. >> he plays -- well, he never -- in his testimony he always reins it in so he's got one dramatic thing he's going to drop but it's not overly done and, you know, we're all going to be looking to pick up whatever that big thing is that he puts out. >> the president is going to be

live tweeting it. >> he, comey, is all -- yeah, this will testify the lawyers' dictate that you can't tweet anymore. good luck with that next week. i think he may be trying to get it out of his system this morning. >> we're going to hit pause. everyone's staying with me for the hour. when we come back, armed with his twitter feed that we've been talking about and plenty of ire that we've seen on full display, donald trump becomes his own one-man war-room. also, staffing up. the white house struggles to fill the jobs that people used to line up for in washington. and coming up, the three-star general in trump's orbit who is supposed to help president trump is instead being degraded according to a prominent military journalist and author who's covered him for years.

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all right. so the tweets are one thing. who hasn't typed something crazy at midnight before they could get their glasses on? the picture of emerging of this president stewing in his mounting rage at a noncompliant media, less than stellar staff and pesky members of congress who won't lift a finger to pass his agenda are striking. even more a man who prides himself on doing things his own way. our white house watchers today, nbc ease kelly o'donnell and glenn thrush with "the new york times." all right, glenn, paint a picture for me, you wrote a stunning story saturday night. we traded e-mails over the weekend. you said i was busy. you sure were. and then your colleagues, peter baker and maggie, i think added some reporting, that this has now become a white house that has talked about a war-room, but the president is sort of realizing his owndestabilizing, and maggie write by this morning nobody feels safe inside donald trump's white house.

>> yeah, i think there's a sense that absolutely everybody is the target of the president's rath. look, this is a guy who's not particularly good at accepting responsibility for his own mistakes, shall we say, and i think we saw it pretty vividly in the off-camera gaggle today with sean spicer. this extraordinary exchange where it was, like, the president meant to do that about the tweet, when clearly it was something else. he just won't accept blame, so he's pointing fingers at everybody in his inner circle. even people like jared kushner aren't particularly safe anymore. and, you know, there is just a sense, i think, what's really happened in the last two weeks is a lot of members of the staff who had been willing to really go for the -- go to the wall for the president. i think are now asking themselves, you know, why do we have to subject ourselves to this? >> i'm hearing that a lot, too. i'm going to flay the sound at glenn just referenced then

kelly, we'll ask you about it on the other side. >> do you think people should be concerned the president posted an incoherent tweet last night and the defense stayed up for hours? >> no. >> why did it stay up so long? is no one watching this? >> no, i think the -- the president and a small group of poem kn people knew exactly what he meant. blake? >> wait a minute. >> who are those small -- because i need them. i type weird stuff sometimes, too, kelly, who tell me who are the small group of people who knew exactly what he meant? i mean, why couldn't they just say it was a typo? anyone that wears glasses and texts sometimes writes covfefe instead of coverage. why can't they tell the truth about easy stuff? >> reporter: my twitter feed has been filled with moments of unfortunate misspellings. >> mine, too. >> reporter: there is this road block for even giving the most simple and explainable answer. it could have been a draft that was accidentally -- a tweet draft that was accidentally put out. it could have been he got distracted by a phone call, didn't realize he hit send.

i've done that. there are a lot of explanatio explanation,explanation, but instead they give us an inscrutable response, deliciously intriguing, that a small group of people knew the impact of these few words that could easily include his social media director, he could have discussed it about -- we don't know. the easy thing would be to have acknowledged it was some type of unexpected mistaken errant tweet. at the same time, that might generate another level of questioning about what is scrutinizing the president's twitter feed, shouldn't it be more carefully vetted? it could have triggered additional questions which is maybe ha they wanted to avoid. that seems to be a tendency of this white house to want to shut down lanes of questioning when there are often innocent human explanations for things. we don't see that from this president. we don't see a willingness to want to back off of it. he, of course, later used his sort of jumbled letters in a way to say, sort of taunt or

intrigue the twitter readers about intriguing them as to what it might actually mean. >> kelly, you know what it made me -- i had a job as white house communications director. you covered the white house in which i served. it would have fallen to someone, say, a communications director, to get involved. he lost his communication director at the beginning of this week. i understand they've turned to four people who have not been interested. i heard from a couple folks in the time between election day and the inauguration who asked me what i thought. i said when a man becomes a leader of the free world without someone in that job, it's very hard to believe that you'd be essential to him once he's president. what are you hearing about the broader effort to staff up with professionals who can defend him in the kind of climate they're facing which is a special counsel investigation? >> reporter: it is particularly difficult for a couple of key facts. the sort of one-man-alone approach of donald trump does make it difficult for people to feel that their staff skills would be valued. i have talked to people on the outside who have been approached

about different kinds of jobs who are concerned about what it would translate into in the private sector later if you have trump white house at the top of your resume. others who are concerned about -- i mean, you know what the long hours are. that's a given with the white house. if it's long hours combined with potential legal bills, personally paid for by staffers if they get swept up in investigations, and a sense of can you make a difference? that that is something that is making some on the outside who are professional staff and operative types who would be likely candidates to serve in a trump white house, that that has been a real question. also, sometimes it's people in their lives, a spouse who says i don't want you to be involved in that because i don't think it would be good for you. those are the sorts of conversations i've had where individuals who have been potentially up for a job are weighing that and the president certainly needs additional staff. >> i hear that as well. glenn, i want to know if you're hearing from people inside the white house who are worried about this reputational harm that kelly describes. i hear from people who call me

periodically and say, is this hurting me? >> oh, yeah. i mean, a couple of things. first of all, even before this stuff happened, the comey stuff and the wiretap tweet that he did in march, there was a real difficulty in staffing up. you know, my sources told me weeks and weeks ago, you know, remember sean spicer served as both communications director and press secretary before they hired dubke and one of the reasons was that he couldn't get signoff from the various committees internally. jared kushner and chief of staff priebus and other people, for people he wanted to hire. and the president -- and i think this isn't a unique dimension to this particular president who is both indifferent to details on policy but extraordinarily focused on details of personnel. that is something people have to understand. the fear is if you bring somebody into the white house who president trump doesn't like, he will hold that against you until the end of your days. so that constraints people from bringing in fresh talent because if that person doesn't mesh with

the president, they then get that on their resume. but there is definitely a sense among people right now that they have to look out for themselves and if you listen to the way that sean's been defending the president, it's been much less personal. much more equivocal. he's been deferring another big thing that happened in the gaggle today is he's been deferring some of these questions now to outside legal advisers. so there is definitely a sea change. >> fascinating and you are two of the most astute watchers of this white house. thank withdrew yo thank you so much for being with us, kelly o'donnell and glenn thrush. when we come back, how the public servants go to make a bad situation better are being, quote, degraded by their association with this president. tom ricks joins us next. re's gog to be a nightmare! does nobody like the future? c'mon, the future. he obviously doesn't know intel is helping power autonomous cars and the 5g network they connect to. with this, won't happen in the future.

thanks, jim. there's some napkins in the glovebox. okay, but why would i need a napkin? you could have just told me a bump was coming. we know the future. because we're building it.

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as i mentioned already, we don't say what's classified, what's not classified. what i will tell you, again, is sth that what the president shared was wholly appropriate. the story, the story combined what was leaked with other information and then insinuated about sources and methods. so i wanted to take clear to everybody that the president in no way compromised any sources or methods in the course of this conversation. >> that was h.r. mcmaster, national security adviser, three-star general in the u.s. army, held in the highest regard in military and intelligence circles. trump's critics hoped he would be a saving grace for this inexperienced white house. instead, he's now a prominent member of president trump's cleanup crew. in a stunning op-ped for politico, pulitzer prize winning journalist thomas ricks now calling on him to step down. begging, save your reputation while you still can. tom ricks is with us now. thanks nr being with us. i've been a fan and reader of your work for a very long time

and i have to say, this was disturbing. i guess that's the best word. i want to read you the part that bravemy chills, i keep reading it to everyone that walks in. "i don't see mcmaster improving trump. what i've seen so far is trump degrading mcmaster. in fact, nothing seems to change trump. he continues to stumble through his foreign policy embracing autocrats, alienating allies and embarrassing americans who understand that nato has helped keep peace in europe for more than 65 years." have you talked to your friend, h.r. mcmaster, about the piece? >> i have not, no. >> do you think you'll hear from him him? >> i wovuldn't call h.r. a friend. i've known him 20 years or more. i knew him since he was a major. someone i covered, someone i respected and even admired. i interviewed him in washington. embedded with his regiment in iraq. he's really an unusual officer. well respected, as you said. a smart general. not all the generals are smart.

author of one of the best books of the vietnam war "dereliction of duty." the point of the book is officers need to be clear and honest with political leaders. kind of shakespearian, a tragedy, to see general mcmaster become part of this morass at the white house lending his military credibility to the president. remember, mcmaster is still on active duty. he's a general with a lot of credibility and he's giving the credibility of his uniform to donald trump who is a strip miner of people's credibility. >> your piece drips with pains, pain of watching someone honorable associated with someone like this president and this white house. i have heard from people inside the national security apparatus of this administration that they share these concerns. i wonder if you think or heard from anyone in military circles,

what kind of reaction you've had from this piece. >> i've had a lot of reaction to it from military people and it's generally been, boy, this has been painful to watch mcmaster in the last few weeks. i mean, not only has he been defending the president, he's been doing it in a way which his story shifts. first he says the "washington post" story is false. the next day, he says i mechbano say the premise is false. he assures us that no intelligence sources were compromised in the course of trump's conversation with the russians. yet, there's no way for him to know that at this point. we don't know whether someone in isis got whacked the next day in beirut because of what trump said. >> so, some of mcmaster's defenders have said to me, actually a former president said to me, he's exceptional, he's a good guy. and i said, is he the right person for this job? and he said, he respects the chain of command and in the moment i thought that was another explanation for why he

was good for the job, but i wonder if in hindsight that makes it impossible for him to defy the person who sits at the top of the chain of command. >> the job of an officer is not to salute smartly and move out. you don't blindly follow orders. yes, you respect the chain of command, but you also have an oath of office that you have sworn. h.r. mcmaster's duty is not to this president. we are not a government of men. we are a government of laws. mcmaster's job is to protect the country, not to protect the president. i think he's confused those two things just as the generals in the vietnam war confused them and he wrote about that. >> you've also written a stunning book, and i would like to give you as much time as you want. i've been picking your brain because your piece so affected me, but tell us art tbout the b >> the book is called "churchhill & orwell: the fight

for freedom." it's a look at two men, very different, a conservative and a socialist, in the 1930s who from different sides of the political spectrum at a time very much like we have now of political turmoil, of party turbulence, of ideological change, these two guys said, no, you do not put party above facts. you must have principles, you must figure out what the facts are, you must then apply your principles to those facts. people talk about fake news. orwell wrote at great length about what he considered fake news from both the right and the left in the civil war in the 1930s. but the bottom line, i think, on this book, for us to think about today, is these are two people who were willing to criticize their own sides. remember that churchill spent the 1930s in the political wilderness because he broke with his own party over the

rearmament of nazi germany. orwell got in a lot of trouble with communists because he broke with stalinism, said, no, stalinism is close to fascism and i'm opposed to both. what i'm looking for today is people like them who are willing to stand out and criticize their own side. >> thomas ricks, only people like you have the ability when you go back and start writing a book that many months ago as it takes to write a book that matches the moment as yours does. thank you so much for talking to us. the book is called "churchill & orwell." we're happy to have you. >> you're welcome. >> i've heard this privately but i've never seen it written by someone with tom ricks' prominence inside the military. is this going to rattle h.r. mcmaster? >> i think so. it is -- i understand what mcmaster is trying -- probably had in his mind when he came there and people like mattis and general kelly at dhs, too, right? let me get in there, they'll be

grown-ups, if trump isn't responsible, we can contain the damage and if he is, we can make something of this presidency. but they're not having impact and, in fact, what they're doing is, you know, they say he's going to back article 5 in nato, and then he doesn't do it and it's all been more hurtful to american credibility when he doesn't do it. i think it's -- i grew up in a military family, myself, and i know that's a difficult situation to be in when you feel like you're in a political conflict. they should leave and let the american people -- and not prop this presidency up and let the american people, and let the republican party, see what this presidency really is about and figure out what they want to do about it. >> do you have any reporting on the dynamic, the personal dynamic between general mcmaster an the president? >> yeah. it's gone back and forth like a lot of the relationships do in the west wing. it's not the public humiliation of having to go out and vouch for this president and put his own credibility on the line. >> you have to be involved in

rapid response. >> the president was telling south korea, you have to pay for the thaad missile system, yourself, undoing a lot of siptsipt diplomacy that was settled, mcmaster called, tried to smooth things over, trump was mad about that because he felt mcmaster who was trying to do diplomatic damage control was cutting him. to the president, all that matters is loyalty to him, his word, his version of truth and that is damaging. it has to weigh on mcmaster not just what's been out there publicly but privately to be -- he does respect the chain of command but this is a different commander in chief. >> look, i do think it probably weighs on mcmaster but i think the general premise of the story is overdone. it's over the top. the idea that we should let the white house collapse because we don't believe in what the president is doing i think is fundamentally not the right approach. >> and you and i have friends that are in it. how about this charge that he's being degraded by donald trump? i mean, i'm sure you and i know some of the same people that

privately worry about that very same thing. >> i have -- >> are they being tarnished? >> i think there is -- >> would you go into this white house? >> yeah, i would go work for my countr country, absolutely. >> you would go work for -- if your phone rings when you're on, pick it up. >> my wife is very angry right now. h.r. mcmaster has a conscience. if he's pushed too hard, he will resign. i have enough confidence in him to know what he is doing is the right thing. listen, let's take a step back. there's a famous scene from one of bob woodward's books, the beginning of the clinton presidency when al gore and i won't say the expletive says to bill clinton, get with the g.d. program. what the president needs is a chief of staff or someone who is his peer that he will actually listen to and maybe that's gary cohn to say, hey, listen, you have got to get with the program. we have got to say that we will cooperate with the russia investiga investigation, we have got to

settle our staff problems and give -- >> give me your phone. they're going to call you while you're on the air. we're hitting pause. up next, i'm going to take the call from the white house. whatever happened to the president's agenda? americans - 83% try to eat healthy.

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let's do more. add one a day 50+ a complete multi-vitamin with 100% daily value of more than 15 key nutrients. one a day 50+. we are back. michael allen who just said he would take a job in the trump white house if it was offered hasn't yet heard from the office of personnel and management, but he has heard from his wife, forbid him from ever coming our out show again. eli, tell me how this debate, very public, very trumpian, about whether to stay in or get out of the paris accord, illuminates the white house, ivanka has asked him to stay in, syria and nicaragua the only other countries we'd join if we held out. >> this was a promise that president trump made to his base, the sort of steve bannon side of the administration. epa administrator scott pruitt pushing really hard for a full

and complete withdrawal. secretary of state rex tillerson, former exxon ceo really saying, look, we don't need to create this diplomatic mess, we can ratchet down the targets, emission targets, do this in another way. ivanka and jared have been on this side of that debate. you have the president sort of still in the middle still waffling, still building the suspense. this morning, a bunch of headlines, some advisers in the white house saying he's made the decision, we're out. and then today, the president tweeted, "i'll make the decision later this week." in the oval office a short while ago telling reporters, you'll find out soon. unclear if he's building the suspense or biding his time. the headlines triggered frantic phone calls from ceos. apple's ceo tim cook called the white house. elon musk, ceo of tesla who's thought about, i should try to influence this administration, part of an advisory council of business leaders. he called the white house. >> wanting him to stay in. >> yes. president trump acknowledged the pressure hearing from people on

both sides. . i talked to someone at the epa earlier this week, said we're not super optimistic, not counting our chickens on this because this is a guy no matter what he says tends to go with the last person in his ear. >> people are right, i hope lots to, lots of ceos in silicon valley call him because he'll react to that. >> foreign leaders are calling him as well. those calls have been going through today also. i don't know if on the cell phone or yet. >> it seems to reveal the two sides of donald trump, though, right? he wants to impress his peers in the business community, he wants the admiratioadmiration, i gues fellow ceos. l he loves to tout titans of business who like him. i can imagine those folks being influential. he's also beholden to the base. >> i think it's what in his face right now, he's in washington, in the oval office, getting calls from the elite side of the world. he's not getting calls from his base. i bet that -- it has big impact on him, things like this matter. he's very reactive.

>> i think so, too. i have sort of a suspicion, though, that the trip to europe and the perceived ill reception he got from european leaders probably didn't endear him to the idea. i do think the president takes a lot of things personally. >> anything paris in it is sort of out? >> if it's coming from continental or new -- if it's old europe, yeah. i don't know if he likes it or not. i have a feeling that that probably had something to do with it. it was not a good reception the way he was treated over there. so i have a feeling this president takes things personally and probably was just like, you know what -- >> screw those europeans, i'm going to get out of their stinking -- >> i think he does respect businesspeople. we'll see whether they can pull him back. i do think he does, you know, generally respect foreign leaders but i wonder whether the personal factor of the trip and the interactions in europe have something to do with it. >> i think it does. if you step back from this, they must know this is a nonbinding agreement, so they can make a big show of this then just change the targets quietly and try to have it both ways.

they can withdraw completely and months later could say, okay, we're going to come back and trump can proclaim we actually got a great deal. he's sending signals to the rest of the world, there's a lot of worry about his disregard for alliances, internationalism. he sent that signal several times over already. he sent it last week about his -- not talking about article 5. a lot of the world's going to move on -- >> this nafta strategy, right, like i'm not going to pull out completely, i'm going to make it better so to his base, they heard it's going to get better for us but to the world order, we essentially -- >> all his base needs to hear is we won. his base needs to hear that he is happy with whatever decision that he has made. remember when we went on the road and talked about china currency manipulation, he's like we can't force them to deal with this now, we need them for north korea, am i right? the biggest cheer of the night among his supporters because thigh need him to say, this is the right thing, we won and i think they're happy. >> mike allen, there are signs

his poll numbers among his base are pretty stable. last week, a 37% approval rating. this week it's still historically low but he's back up to 42%. his base will sort of tolerate anything, right? >> i think so. >> you think it hurts him with his base if he stay in the paris accord? >> i think it does a little bit help him with -- look, i think -- >> you think getting out helps him. >> i think getting out helps him marginally with his own base especially in maybe coal mining states, west virginia, other places like that, maybe kentucky. hey, listen, i think the big thing, however, for president trump is is that his base isn't going away. they knew what they were electing. they're angrier at congress and at washington than they are at anything else. they knew they were sending someone up there to roil the waters. they're glad he's doing it. it's not to say you won't hit a tipping point if we can't get, we, the republicans, can't get legislative accomplishments. then it's like the whole pox on everything. but there is a little bit more time left for him to try to put one foot ahead of the other. >> does he have more time than

paul ryan and his caucus? trump? >> he does have more time than paul ryan and his caucus. look, i think the speaker doesn't have a majority. the speaker when i was up there working for the house intelligence committee, we have a plurality, sort of bush republicans, traditional country club economic conservatives. >> we remember them. >> and the freedom caucus. and so i think ryan needs trump to get the freedom caucus to pull them over. the only way they got the health care bill done. >> all right. we're just hitting pause. coming up next, diagnosis election. hillary clinton coming out today locked and loaded on all the things that went wrong. trump, russia, fake news. all that stuff. just ahead. >> the russians, in my opinion, and based on the intel and counterintel people i've talked to, could not have known how best to weaponize that information unless they had been guided. and here's -- >> guided by americans. >> guided by americans and guided by people who had, you know, polling and data information. >> who is that? ♪ art. it can be sculpted, bringing to life beautiful detail.

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i take responsibility for every decision i made but that's not why i lost. the use of my e-mail account was turned into the biggest scandal since lord knows when. this is biggest nothing burger ever. there was no law against it, no rule. nothing of that sort. i didn't break any rule. nobody said don't do this.

i know you had dean here from "the new york times" here yesterday. and they covered it like it was pearl harbor. you had citizens united come to full fruition and that was before russia. through an enormous investment in falsehoods, fake news, the vast majority of the news items posted were fake. i inherit nothing from the democratic party. i was the victim of a very broad assumption i was going to win. >> that was hillary clinton opening up about her election loss this afternoon at the code technology conference in california. listen, i had the job that you had. you and i talked during entire campaign. hillary clinton is chaneling the conversations that you were having privately. you can't say anything, if you're hillary clinton or about hillary clinton anymore without

igniting a war. people are so divided about whether she should still be talking about it. about whether she should be the face of the democratic party. >> tell your story the way you want to tell it. people always say they want authentic hillary. this is the, is the campaign still on her mind? yeah, it is. is she still trying to figure out how she lost? not like oh, i lost the presidential campaign the way al gore did. she is the person who lost to donald trump. that's a devastating fact she will always live with. so yes, it is always on her mind. and i think that she is best when she is being her authentic self. that's how she should answer the questions. there was a word cloud about

coverage on e-mail. and it was about this big. all the clip that's were pulled out are about e-mails. and it is the most grocery overcovered, overstated issue that i've seen in politics. >> it turns out there were two people under fbi investigation. the one investigation we didn't know about was the guy who won. that seems grossly unfair on every democrat and even some republican there's privately acknowledge, if people knew the intelligence agencies and the fbi were look sboo contacts and possible coordination between trump's orbit and the russians, he would have been under the same cloud. his cloud might have said russia. >> the investigations were at different stages. james comey was always walking a tight rope. my reaction was wow. i hope it was todcathartic.

i heard victim a lot. i haven't seen the whole speech. i didn't hear one thing today about, hey, listen, here's what i could have done better. here's maybe what president obama -- >> in fairness, we ed it it. we will take a quick break but we'll be right back. every business is different. but every one of those businesses will need legal help as they age and grow. whether it be help starting your business, vendor contracts or employment agreements. legalzoom's network of attorneys can help you every step of the way so you can focus on what you do. we'll handle the legal stuff that comes up along the way. legalzoom. legal help is here.

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♪ if you're a stuntman, you cheat death. it's what you do. if you want to save fifteen percent or more on car insurance, you switch to geico. it's what you do. número uno! there's one person at our table who is on deadline so he will get the last word. >> i'm still pinging the white house. about the paris agreements, trying to see if trump has made up his mind. but as trump turns, there's news from my capital league colleague

reporting the house intelligence committee, the one fraught by politics and everything else, just issued seven speenl as today, four related to the russia probe, three related to the trump names, the masking of names. how they come came across the interseptembers. >> are the subpoena on the investigation? >> you always come loaded with facts. thank you to my panel. thank you for joining the panel. that does it for this hour i'm nicole wallace. hi, chuck. >> always a good remind per there is another mike allen out there. >> exactly. they're both great. absolutely. if it's wednesday, it is a new lesson in trumpology 10