that is going to wrap me up here at "velshi & ruhle." right now we are awaiting today's press conference taking place in las vegas, nevada. it will be led by joe lombardo who i want to say every day throughout the step of this has really been sharing as much information as possible, even though here we are. this vicious attack took place sunday night and here we are thursday, still without a clear motive. we believe in today's press conference he is going to be joined by some members of the local fire department as well, and we're going to get an update on those who still remain in the hospital. all right, that is going to do it for me today on this edition of "velshi & ruhle." i'm stephanie ruhle. my colleague ali velshi on assignment in vegas so you'll

see him later today. right now let me turn you to andrea mitchell for "andrea mitchell reports." castaway. rex tillerson cozying up to the vice president today as all sides try to play nice. that exclusive report on the feud between the president and the secretary of state. and foreign policy leaders worry about what this signals to the rest of the world. >> secretary tillerson, secretary mattis and chief of staff kelly are those people that help separate our country from chaos. >> did he act alone? we are learning more about when and where stephen paddock bought the arsenal of assault weapons that he used to kill 58 people in las vegas as investigators talk to his girlfriend and search for another woman of interest. >> we know that stephen paddock is a man who spent decades acquiring weapons and ammo and

living a secret life, much of which will never be fully understood. you have to make the assumption he had to have help at some point. >> and hitting a wall. the senate intelligence committee says there are more questions than answers in the russia investigation. >> the issue of collusion is still open, that we continue to investigate both intelligence and witnesses, and that we're not in a position where welcome to any type of temporary finding on that until we've completed the process. coming up here, the top democrat leading the house russia investigation, adam schiff, on what he has found out. good day, everyone. i'm andrea mitchell in washington. the president's national security team scrambling to contain the fallout from an exclusive nbc news report that secretary of state rex tillerson called the president a moron and

also threatened to quit in july. a show of support today from the vice president side by side with tillerson at a national space council meeting while the president fires back, tweeting today, rex tillerson never threatened to resign. this is fake news put out by nbc news. low news and reporting standards. no verification from me. after the story first broke yesterday, both sides went into damage control. the president says he has total confidence in rex. the secretary of state holding an extraordinary news conference to praise the president and deny he had considered quitting. >> i was appointed by the president and i'm here as long as the president feels i can be useful to achieving his objectives. >> cnn officials confirmed that tillerson did threaten to resign in july after clashing with the white house repeatedly over policy, but was talked out of it by general mattis and general john kelly. joining me with all of this,

kristen welker, part of the team who reported on this, and ann geary, the correspondent with the "washington post." kristen, first to you. this relationship is what's been described to me as toxic between the president and the secretary of state. is that sustainable? >> reporter: that's right. and that is the concern here, was in the administration. look, the tensions that we have seen bubble up really came to the surface yesterday, andrea, in the wake of our reporting. look, to put this into a broader context, these tensions are not new. we have seen this over the handling of the crisis in cutter. we've seen this over how to deal with north korea. just this weekend president trump criticizing his secretary of state of his handling of the crisis in north korea, saying it's a waste of time to have talks with that country. we've seen these tensions, but what happened yesterday was remarkable, because in the wake of our report, the secretary of state felt the need to come to the podium and say definitively

that he supports the president. but, of course, that moment when he was asked whether he actually called the president a moron, he didn't answer, effectively. so that concerned people here within the administration. he didn't deny that reporting. the problem, though, for the president is that he already has a number of posts that effectively haven't been officially filled, for example, dhs, hhs with the ouster of tom price just last week, and he's had so much turnover here from his communications directors to his press secretary, sean spicer. so there is a real concern about any more turnover. but, of course, the implications for national security and diplomacy could be very significant, and that's a big focus here, andrea. >> ann gear, the state department is really paralyzed by all of this. >> yes. the paralysis at the state department has a number of reasons behind it, but certainly

the question of what leadership tirre tillerson is providing within the state department is an open one. and if the state department can't be an effective player within the administration, which basically means him and what pull he has at the white house, you know, that affects what else the state department can do. is it the place that diplomats in washington who traditionally interact with the state department at all levels, basically for anything that they need, stt plais it the place why feel they can get answers? is it the place congress feels they can get answers, and do those interactions actually work? >> the fact is, even those who have been critical of rex tillerson and his management, the fact that foreign leaders and their ambassadors don't have an easy path to getting a meeting with him, they can't get foreign secretaries in. the players of the assistant secretaries are not in place, the protocol is not in place.

the whole structure of the state department as we've always known it, you and i, and we've covered it for decades, has broken down. >> yeah. a certain amount of the work continues, right? secretary tillerson is doing the work of the secretary of state. he is traveling, he is having his meetings, he is coming to those meetings informed and so forth. the state department will announce later today that he is traveling later this month to india, pakistan and afghanistan, for example, a traditional state department trip. that part of the ship is sailing. but beneath it is a whole lot of chaos. i heard a story this morning about a new ambassador in town who wanted to get a meeting for the country's foreign minister and went through the usual channels at the state department. heard nothing for five months, then got a message saying the secretary will meet your minister tomorrow and this country is not near the united states. just that sort of thing. >> i've heard exactly the same.

your story today is head lined "death spiral." kristen, just look at the people. you referenced the fact that he can't lose the secretary of state right now. look at the people who have left. you've got the chief of staff reince priebus, press secretary sean spicer, national security adviser michael flynn after only 28 days, white house communications director anthony scaramucci after ten days, steve bannon, secretary of health and human services tom price. he hasn't replaced john kelly who has elaine duke as the acting secretary at dhs, so he can't lose another cabinet, and this is the most important cabinet secretary, the one fourth in line for the presidency. >> reporter: and there is a concern, andrea, if there were any more ousters here within the administration that it would make it that much more difficult to get credible people to come in ask fill these very important positions. dhs secretary, hhs secretary. that's the key focus here, and as you point out, the position

of secretary of state is perhaps the most important position here in the administration. so there is a real hesitancy to rock this boat even though there are these tensions that have been on display publicly and that, again, really bubbled up to the surface yesterday, andrea. the president is very aware of making sure that his administration does not look like it is being royaled on a weekly bas -- roiled every day by staff upsets. but if there are all these fundamental differences on issues like north korea which is arguably the most pressing foreign policy crisis they are facing right now, how can they proceed if they're consistently on different pages, andrea? >> of course, iran with a decision to be made before october 15th, whether to proceed or recertify the iran nuclear deal. thank you, kristen welker, for all your reporting, ann gearen

as well. former senator chairman bob corker is trying to calm troubled waters between the president and his secretary of state. >> i think secretary tillerson, secretary mattis and chief of staff kelly are those people that help separate our country from chaos. and i support them very much. i deal with people throughout the administration, and he, from my perspective, is in an incredibly frustrating place. he ends up not being supportive in the way that i would hope a secretary of state would be supportive. >> kel. >> kelli: -- >> kelly ann conway gave her opinion this morning. >> he is crediting their leadership keeping this country from the chaos around the world.

they support the president. >> joining me now is former defense secretary bill cohen who also served on capitol hill as a senate member, a house member. you've done it all. you've written novels, you've written poetry. maybe you can come up with a poem, a haiku, perhaps, to describe the relationship. the odyssey of rex tillerson. oh, my gosh, bill kohn, i know there have been disputes between defense secretaries and secretaries of state. classically, schultz and wi weinberger. we've seen the kissinger state department, secretary rogers, secretary vance not getting along with brzenski.

>> first of all, let me say a word about rex tillerson. he is a serving man, a substantive man and a good man. i think he's been undercut from the beginning. not able to pick his own jeopardy, which one would think if you're giving up a very big career with exxonmobil, leading one of the biggest companies in the world, and then having to deal with the tax implications of accelerating all he was going to get in the future, that's a real commitment on his part. he's a real patriot. but he's been undercut from the beginning. and i think time after time he's tried to engage in diplomacy, and the president has undercut him. so this normally takes place inside the administration. no cabinet head likes being overruled by the president, even in private. but to be overruled time after time in public and undercut in public really is demoralizing certainly to the state

department. rex tillerson feels committed to this position and has made it clear he wants to stay on. but it's really up to the president, obviously, and it's also up to him. does he think he can continue to be effective? the problem is that every time this spills out, people around the world question, is secretary of state tillerson speaking for the president, or are they at laugerheads? the notion that he would go out of his way to try to have a diplomatic solution in north korea and have the president say you're wasting your time, one would think before you go to the region, you would take your schedule, your itinerary and say, i'm having meetings with the following. and have it really clear to the white house saying, this is a list of the following people i'm going to meet. apparently that wasn't done or secretary tillerson went on his own. >> he went to beijing. it was a single mission, to meet with president xi and prepare for the president's meeting and

get some of the waters calmed down about u.s. posture towards north korea. before president xi went into his communist party congress. and so if that was his sole mission, how could that not have been done in the national security council process? or was the president freelancing on sunday only hours after secretary tillerson landed? >> it's really a process whereby the heads of the cabinet are dealing with a particular issue get together, and with the national security adviser, go over the itinerary, the plans, the proposals and to work those out if there are any differences. >> bottom line, you travel around the world, you talk to leaders everywhere. heads of government and their foreign ministers do not believe that rex tillerson speaks for the president. that's clear. so how can he function? >> well, you also have secretary jim mattis who has talked about diplomacy. he and secretary tillerson are on the same page while the

president is saying, we have to rain fire and fury in north korea. who came out first? secretary mattis saying diplomacy is still available to us, we must pursue it. >> and on iran. mattis says it's in our national interest to assert that iran is abiding by the conflicines of t nuclear plan. >> but it undercuts his authority, so to use the phrase of senator corker, it makes it more chaotic. >> isn't it built-in when you have your son-in-law doing the middle east negotiations and when you, the president, are signing on to a posture of saudi arabia against another ally where we have our biggest military base, and then you disavow the diplomacy to try to smooth that over within an hour of secretary tillerson making a speech on that. >> rosa brooks wrote an

interesting book. she said when war is everything, the military becomes everything. that is the question. secretary tillerson's job is to engage in diplomacy, not to threaten war. he's got the warfare component backed up by secretary of defense, but the notion that we're simply going to threaten and threaten and not sit down and try to figure out a way that we can resolve this peacefully seems to me to be contrary to our interests. >> should he quit? >> if he feels he can serve the president effectively, he should stay. if he's come to the conclusion that he no longer has the ability to carry out that mission, then he should leave. but that's up to him and the president. if the president feels he needs him and wants him, obviously he'll stay. people outside really can make recommendation but only those two people have the right and the ability to make that choice. >> thank you so much, secretary bill kohn. gun safety.

will republicans finally agree to some gun measures to prevent semiautomatic weapons being converted into machine guns. plus the latest on the russia investigation. you're watching "andrea mitchell reports" on msnbc. i write them a poem instead. and one for each of you too. woman: cool. that actually yours... that one. yeah. regardless, we're stuck with the bill. to many, words are the most valuable currency. last i checked, stores don't take words. man: some do. oh. (alert beeps) not everyone can be the poetic voice of a generation. i know, right? such a burden. settle up with your friends on october 17th with the bank of america mobile banking app. settle up with your friends on october 17th you can avoid extra calories trifrom cooking r. with too much butter and oil. introducing new pam spray pump. with 1 gram of fat and ten calories per serving plus the superior non-stick you love. hashtag omeletgoals new pam spray pump.

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i'm learning new details about las vegas gunman stephen paddock's background. as federal investigators continue the intricate task of combing through his personal devices trying to find any clues that could hint at a motive, nbc

justice correspondent pete williams joins me now. what have they learned within the last day or so? >> nothing about moeftive, andr, but you're right, going through the electronic devices does shed light on a little more of what he was going through. he did research on other high-rise hotels, notably boston for fenway park and chicago for grant park. he went so far as to get a hotel room in the chicago case, but he never went there, and there is no indication he went to boston, either. they're still trying to figure out whether anybody helped him. the sheriff had said he finds it inconceivable that stephen paddock was able to pull this off on his own, but so far they have found in indication that he did have help from anyone else, it appears he bought all the guns himself, but that's very much an open question. >> at this stage, what do they

know about his girlfriend and whether or not -- i know she said she didn't know anything, that she was sent -- he sent her away with a ticket and with money to get her out of the country. what about this other woman that they think they saw with him? could she have been -- >> they don't know. they're trying to nail that down. there are some people who say they saw him with another woman. they're trying to figure out what that might be, what that relationship might have been. they just don't know. they've asked for tips, they're getting tips. they've got to run them all down. some of them are going to turn out to be true and some of them are not, and i think this is in that go either way category that they're trying to figure out exactly who it is. get in touch with this woman and find out what the deal was. >> and pete, one of the things that's so fascinating is when they looked at his history of buying guns, there was an appreciable difference just about a year ago. have they figured out what might have been changed in his life?

>> yes. he started buying guns 35 years ago, but just a year ago, he started buying them at a much faster rate. almost three-quarters of the guns that he owned he bought in just the last year, almost all of them rifles, the kind that were in his hotel room. so what was he thinking? what happened in his life? was there some crisis? they haven't found any obvious answers to that. they found lots of little issues, lots of minor mental health issues, minor physical issues, they say, but nothing they believe that would push him over the edge or cause him to begin planning for mass murder. >> pete williams, thank you so much for your continuing reporting on all of this. the legislation to ban the bump fire stock gun accessories used by stephen paddock that helped him in the firing of semiautomatic weapons has been met with more resistance from the republicans since the sandy

hook shooting. navy pilot and captain mark kelly is looking for solutions for his wife, congresswoman gabby giffords. mark, it's good to see you today. another massacre, another location, the worst in american history. the weapons he used, the arsenal he assembled. how significant would it be if congress at least moved on these bump stock devices? >> it might seem like a minor thing, but i think it's pretty significant. one of the reasons is, it is an acknowledgment by both sides of the aisle that our laws do matter. you know, that we can legislate effective policies that will keep americans safer. in this case safer from automatic fire. what we need to do along with this, though, we've got to give the atf the resources it needs to do its job. they've been underfunded for such a long time. and what pete talked about where

this guy amassed a large quantity of weapons in a short period of time, because they were semiautomatic assault rifles, there is no requirement that the atf get notified. if they were handguns, if you buy more than one handgun in five days from a licensed dealer, the atf gets notified. that should probably be the same requirement on long guns. >> the nra has objected to any change in gun laws, thinking that it's the beginning of a slippery slope, and the amount of money, millions, $5 million in one cycle contributed to incumbents right now by the nra. one of the biggest recipients, maybe the biggest on the house side, paul ryan, who is an avid gun enthusiast. but he was interviewed by hugh hewitt and i want to play that today. there was a little bit of give this time. >> i didn't even know what they were until this week, and ivan avid sportsman.

i think we're coming up to speed with what this is. fully automatic rifles have been banned for a long time. this allows you to turn a semiautomatic into an automatic, so clearly that's something we need to look into. >> senator feinstein in her third term in 1983 or 1984 got the semiautomatic weapon ban passed and then after ten years, congress let is sit. then after sandy hook, they tried it again and got nowhere. but this could be one small step? >> it's opening the door to effective legislation, but let's look at the big picture here. we have 35 million americans dying each year from gun use, a lot of them suicides. but we should have to pass some kind of security background check bill. 30% of gun sales are done without a background check. that's where criminals and domestic abusers go to buy their

weapons. that's where we can get to the heart of the bigger problem, the larger numbers. this is important. preventing people from having an automatic weapon is important. i think this is one of the reasons, the fact that we have americans buying -- you know, building arsenals is one of the reasons why our police has turned into, like, a military force in itself. do we really want to live in a country like this? >> it's an arms race. >> it is. it's an arms race. >> we're going to go to a news conference with the first responders and the fire chief in las vegas, but just to reiterate, because i know something of what you all have been through. for those who have gone through this, steve scalise here but certainly all the victims there, the recovery time, not just the emotional side, but the physical recovery for gabby giffords, your wife, continues. >> oh, it will continue for the rest of her life. you don't get shot in the head with a 9-millimeter round from three feet away and get back to where you were before.

gabby continues the work on her therapy, physical therapy, speech therapy. she works harder than anybody i know, and she's very positive. you know, she doesn't want to look back and say, hey, this is really unfortunate that this happened to me, but now she's on a mission. and gabby and myself and our organization, americans for responsible solutions, we want to keep communities safer from gun violence, and it's so important that these members of congress here know that our laws matter, that this is not a normal situation, it's not inevitable that we have tens of thousands of people dying each year. we can fix this. >> well, thank you so much, mark kelly. our best to gabby giffords. >> you're welcome. thanks for having me on. >> always. just as mark kelly was talking about, the fire chief is talking about how impossible it is to prevent and protect against this kind of massacre. >> it gives us the ability to have one person in charge or two people tied together, a police

officer and a fire chief in this instance, to run the incident, to work together, to bring the right resorts togethurces toget limit the confusion of what agency is requesting and what one entity is providing. the command saves lives. there is no doubt in my mind that the fact we were standing toe to toe with police officers and the lieutenant and captain level at the police department to integrate our response was critical. we've also performed reality-based training where we've been in situations with the police officers when they're engaging people with targets and training at targets with their weapons, so we've simulated gunfire at these events. we've gone up and beyond, as far as i can tell, speaking for fire chiefs across the country. they're very impressed. we love our cops and they love us. that paid off for us the other night in a way that we had hoped, if we ever needed it, but

we never really wanted to have to use it. so faras far as the response th night. our response time to that incident, i can honestly say for our first arriving unit was less than five seconds. the reason i say that is, fire engine 11 who was stationed about a mile south was coming back from a traffic accident call. they headed east on moreno, left on giles and that's gunfire. they were right there to the fence of the event. the captain picked up the radio and said, dispatch, do you have any reports of gunfire and something going on right now, because i'm hearing a lot of gunfire? they said, no. oh, yes, now we do. it was that fast. the floodgates opened on giles and out pours dozens and dozens and dozens of patients, critically, some mortally wounded and swamped that company in the middle of the streets. so our patients were just

outside the streets on that venue. our captain, named k called for units. and he called for our mass casualty unit which we have outside today and you'll have the opportunity to see, walk around and look at what we have prepared to respond to events like this in our community. we also had, like i said, 32 other calls. we had 32 other calls and these calls are coming in and dispatch is sending units to these calls. we have the medical come and go we have other alarms coming in to answer that call. they're coming from 8, 10, 15 minutes away because they're coming from stations as far away as topaz, they're coming from the city of las vegas, they're coming from far areas. we had to get our people down there. those units that were inbound on that medical alarm by captain

o'shaunnesy, they encountered those patients. there were people dying, they dealt with them. there were people critically wounded. they called for ambulances, got them in the ambulances and to the hospitals as best they could. branches. we talked about the instant command system, so i'll expound on that just a touch. we have the instant commander and under the commander we have branches. they request resources and they manage our event. >> and as we watch the briefing in las vague a we'll bring you any breaking news there, but i want to bring in democratic nevada senator katherine cortez masto. senator, thank you very much. obviously everyone is thinking about las vegas and what your community has been through. the nation is completely committed to this. you saw -- i think you were with the president yesterday during

his visit, and i don't know if you discussed the assault weapon fix that has been proposed by senator feinstein with the president, but i understand you have now signed onto it. >> reporter: oh, absolutely. and no, we didn't have an opportunity to discuss it. and what you're hearing on the press conference, andrea, is just the incredible community response that we had here in southern nevada from our firefighters to law enforcement to our medical personnel. it was just an incredible thing. i'm very, very proud of this community and the response. but right now, as you know, there are still a lot of families here, there are still a lot of, unfortunately, the injured in our hospitals. they're going to go back for more surgeries. we're working with the families who have lost their loved ones. there is still a lot of grief, and ufryou have a community in mourning right now, and part of that is bringing relief and comfort to them. that's what the president did

yesterday. i had the opportunity to talk to him and we talked just about the incident and how horrific it was on sunday, and really now the importance of bringing that comfort and relief here to southern nevada. >> as your community heeals, i know sarah huckabee sanders had said this is not the time to talk about policy and legislation and guns, but many people thought that was a delaying tactic because typically republicans don't want to talk about gun laws. that said, now there seems to be some movement. do you think there is some movement among republicans, even paul ryan saying there might be something worth considering here and just stopping those bump stock from being sold. >> i think anything we can do, yeah. andrea, anything we can do to make sure somebody cannot take a semiautomatic weapon and turn it into an automatic weapon for the very reason you saw here.

anything we can do to outlaw those devices, i think many of my colleagues will get behind. i'm hearing some of that now. i'm here in las vegas now, but when i get back to washington, this will be something i'm very vocal about. there is no need for those types of devices. we have to have common sense gun laws in this country. the discussion needs to occur. this is the very reason why. this week i'm spending with loved ones -- you have to understand, this is still a small community. we have 40 million visitors here annually, but the people that were born and raised here like me or that live here, it's still a small community. there are many of us who had friends or family at that concert. my niece was there. we are still trying to grapple with what happened and the shock of it, and there will be many of us now who are going to be vocal and fighting to prevent it from happening in the future. and that is a fight i am not new to. i was the attorney general here for eight years and was very

vocal about passing common-sense gun laws that we need. background checks, making sure these types of weapons don't get in the hands of the mentally ill or terrorists. and the majority of nevadans, the majority of people get it and understand it, and they're expecting this type of discussion to occur not just in nevada but across the country. and i think it has to. >> you mentioned your niece was there. how is she doing? >> she made it home safely, and she, like everyone else, state of shock and still going through the stages of grief that anybody would, having dealt with this, what happened, or having been there or survived it or just friends or families or people that were dealing with this. it's just been horrific, but you know what? i have to say as a community, the counselors have come out. the grief counselors are here. the grief counselors are making sure that everyone in this community and anyone who is visiting this community that

needs any type of grief counseling, we're going to be there for them. >> and i understand that after this interview, you're about to go and donate blood, that people have been lining up to donate blood? senator, i'm so sorry, i apologize. i think we lost our audio connection, but i do know from her schedulers that she is about to go donate blood, and that's just one of the things people are doing there as that community comes together, obviously in grief and also in resolve to not let this happen again. coming up, open question. the senate intelligence chiefs confirm that they have not determined whether the trump campaign colluded with russia. and what about that dossier? the top democrat on the house intel committee, adam schiff, joins me next. you're watching "andrea mitchell reports" on msnbc. ♪ (music plays throughout) ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪

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interfere in the 2016 election. >> i think the professional community and intel professionals would be stronger if the first customer of the intelligence community's work accepted unambiguously the unanimous position of the intelligence committee in terms of russian interference in the election. [ applause ] >> but when that first customer does not accept that, and when that first customer denigrates that work and the work of the professionals from the intelligence community, how then can the american people embrace the work and the mission of the intelligence community? >> joining me now is democratic congressman adam schiff, the top democrat on the house intelligence committee. congressman, thank you. you just saw john brennan and the former cia director speaking at a panel here in washington the other day. he makes the point that if the president himself keeps saying

it's a hoax, it's not real, it didn't happen, it's fake news, then how are people going to even accept the results of your committee, the senate committee, or most importantly, robert mueller? >> john brennan is exactly right. we can't have a president go into a meeting, for example, with vladimir putin who our intelligence community has said orchestrated this attack on our democracy and basically say, i don't trust my own intelligence agencies. i don't know if he really did it, did you really do it, vladimir? that so denigrates these professionals within the intelligence community, and it sends a signal not only to the russians but to americans as well that we should be disbelieving of our own intelligence community when it concerns an adversary. and i would say even more significantly the single most important thing that we need to do to prepare for what the russians do in the future is to develop a national consensus that whoever helps or hurts, if foreigners intervene, we will

reject it. he's preventing us from getting to that consensus. >> as you have an oversight role over how the intelligence agencies function, how are we to be sure that he is not trying to influence the outcome or that they are not editing or self-sensoring themselves about conclusions since he seems to be so disrespectful of a unanimous assessment? >> this is a grave concern. we want to make sure there is never any politicization, and the president has made it clear in various ways that he would like to find iran in non-compliance with the nuclear deal. i want to make sure as part of my oversight function that that priority of the president's, that misplaced priority, in my view, is not going to result in any coloring of the intelligence we get from the ic. now, i don't see any evidence of that. in fact, i don't see any evidence of iranian non-compliance with the parameters of the deal, but that

does concern me, that he is willing to put that kind of pressure on the ic. >> on the intelligence community, known as the ic among the community. the other point here is that the president's secretary of state, who has argued behind the scenes that they are complying, and general mattis said that to the armed services committee just the other day, the defense secretary. how will the secretary of state, now that he is fighting to keep his job and bending over backwards after being exposed as being in a silent war with the president, how do we know that he will fight to keep these assessments valid? >> well, the enormous problem is created by this whole situation, and if you look, for example, at the situation with north korea where the president undercut the secretary of state in his efforts, these issues aren't

unrelated. if the secretary of state says ir iran is in compliance, and then the president of the united states says we are going to certify that they're not, what message are we sending to north korea? that is a real immediate problem. how can we somehow negotiate with the north korean program if the president is saying he will disregard the compliance and make sure iran is in non-compliance. this makes a huge challenge for secretary tillerson to be able to do his job effectively. >> they said they are on a dead end because they can't get testimony from christopher steele. you said last night that you and your republican chairman would go to london, but obviously mr. steele, the former operative who did that dossier, is not willing to talk. maybe he's talking to robert mueller, but he's not talking to

congress. >> he's not talking to us yet. we still hope to meet with him and discuss the findings in the dossier, but there are other ways to corroborate information or disprove information in the dossier. he was relying on sources, and to the degree we can identify some of the sources, that will help us vet this information. but there are also other means of determining whether facts are correct or not. it is, i think, a very important and useful guide to figure out what we need to look into, what may have taken place as reported, and where he may have gotten it wrong. but i think the efforts which i see to impeach the messenger, to attack him personally may make him less likely to cooperate with us. and number two, our mission is to find out that this isn't necessarily true, to attack a somewhat intelligent former

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this is what i don't understand about washington. the place is come from, we don't deal with that kind of petty nonsense. it is intended to do nothing to provide people. i will do nothing to his administration. >> he did in falct say he refer today the president as a moron which was confirmed by three senior officials. joining me now from the inside scoop it comes out in an

unscheduled news conference to say or to try to deflect questions about whether he called the president of the united states a moron you're in a whole new place. >> it is certainly a place you and i have never been before. this is really serious. the non-denial, these are sentences i can't even believe i'm saying right now. the fact that i honestly, i try to be respectful of the presidency but it was shocking but it was also believable in some sense.

>> the secretary told her he did not say it. others reporting they had heard the same as well as the fact that he then left after sill tillerson scheduled his news conference. >> you would be furious if people were viewing you that way. this does not seem like a marriage that can be saved. rex tillerson came in as ceo of exxon mobile.

why he made the decision to contradict this obviously correct story and take issue with it rather than take the moment and say okay i'm done, i really would like to understand that. >> there is one argument that they believe and that there needs to be some sobriety in this trump world. it is in a way that's and he

chooses his words very carefully. it is what's preventing us from being in chaos. chaos meaning it's a reminder of bush. >> thank you very much. more ahead. we'll be right back. who does he leave the snowmen for? this killer is completely insane. [ gasp ] [ distorted voice ] i gave you all the clues. you could have saved her. he's been watching us the whole time. no. [ screaming ] [ distorted voice ] this is just the beginning. [ screaming ] the snowman.

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that does it for this edition. remember, follow us online on facebook and twitter. chris is here next right here on msnbc. >> thank you. good afternoon. we are at msnbc headquarters. law enforcement officials say he researched other possible attack locations in boston and chicago. gop lawmakers opening the door to the first step towards gun control. are republicans ready to take action? and democrats divided publicly calling to step aside and make way for new leadership. is this the beginning of a democratic revolt? so much to get to. we begin with questions unanswered. why did steven paddock such an elaborate plan and how did the gunman go unnoticed as he unmasked