make a life as best they can. that's all for this edition of "dateline." i'm craig melvin. thank you for watching. good morning. i'm dara brown in new york at msnbc world headquarters. it's 7:00 in the east, 4:00 out west. here's what's happening. an overnight vote in the senate and a big win for the president and his party. so what's actually in the tax bill? >> given this 20 minutes ago, 25 minutes ago. and we're supposed to vote on it in a couple hours. >> who benefits the most, and what will this do to the deficit? some answers ahead. after the plea, what michael flynn's cooperation means for the mueller investigation, and where does this go next? plus, what the deal means for the president and reaction inside the white house to all of this.

we begin with breaking news. republicans are now gearing up for one final hurdle after a major victory a few hours ago to overhaul the tax code. all but one republican senator, bob corker, voted in favor of the sweeping tax bill. democrats unanimously opposed it. the last hurdle is reconciling the house and senate versions before president trump can sign it. majority leader mitch mcconnell spoke shortly after the folk and fought back criticism from democrats about how the process played out. >> this was done through the regular order. the democrats had plenty of notice. everybody had plenty of opportunity to see the measure. you complain about process when you're losing. and that's what you heard on the floor tonight. >> president trump tweeted his thanks to the majority leader and finance chairman orin hatch, and he reiterated his goal to sign a final bill before christmas. let's bring in sean sullivan, congressional reporter for "the

washington post," and melanie zanona, a staff writer. sean, walk us through what it took for mitch mcconnell to score this victory and what still needs to be hashed out when they go to conference. >> well, you know, earlier this week, mitch mcconnell compared this process to solving a rubik's cube. it's looked a lot like that when you look at some of the last-minute negotiations that happened this week. every time he made a move to try to please one senator, it seemed to risk potentially alienating another north is the, but at the end of the day, what he did was looked at a handful of senators who were skeptical about this bill and was able to get enough of them. ron johnson and jeff flake were looking for specific assurances on business taxes. susan collins from maine was looking for certain guarantees on health care on state and local taxes. and in the end, he was able to address these individual needs of these individual snavenators

a point where he was able to win all but one of them in this final vote. >> that was bob corker as the standout. melanie, i want to play for you what else the senate majority leader said this morning. >> as we've said over and over again, the $1.5 trillion deficit to be filled only requires us to grow 0.4% over the next ten years. goodness gracious. that's very much achievable. i'm totally convinced this is a revenue neutral bill. actually, a revenue producer. >> melanie, how does the republican party counter what independent studies are predicting and the negative polling of this bill? >> well, if republicans were so sure about this, we wouldn't have seen the dramatic vote on thursday. what was supposed to be a procedural vote ended up being this dramatic hour-long session on the floor. you saw everyone huddled around corker and the parliamentarian. that's because the so-called trigger they wanted included,

which would have imposed automatic spending tax increases from the projected revenue did not materialize from this bill could not be included and couldn't pass procedural rules. i think it really underscores the concern from the party that this could come back to haunt them and democrats could use this as a club over their heads in the 2018 midterm elections. look, i think at the end of the day, they made a calculation that they have a winning message here with this bill, with their conservative base. it's tax cuts, huge tax cuts for corporations, a once in a generation tax reform overhaul, and not to mention the inclusion of repealing the obamacare mandate, which only deepens the victory for the gop. >> and sean, let me play for you what bob corker told reporters about his decision to vote against the bill. >> it just came down to sort of the bump-up between fiscal issues and my concern about, you know, the long-term debt. i do think a lot of people believe that the growth is going to overcome -- i hope it does --

for the good of our country. it could well do so. just based on the information i have today, it didn't lead towards that end. but we'll see. >> one nay vote from the gop. what happened to the deficit hawks there? >> yeah, it's interesting. earlier this week, bob corker said he kind of feels like he's part of a dying breed when it comes to deficit hawks. in recent years, we've heard republicans warn repeatedly, especially during the obama administration, about the danger of ballooning the national debt, the threat that potentially presents to the united states in the long-term. you didn't hear a lot of that from republicans this time. bob corker was the most vocal republican in the senate who is raising these concerns. he ultimately voted against it, of course. but it really does feel like we're in a different era right now where republicans are no longer talking about the deficit, the debt. they point to this tax bill. they say, look, growth is going to be such that this isn't going

to balloon the deficit, but as we see, you know, these studies show otherwise and we're not hearing the same alarm bells from the gop that we heard in previous years. so it's a pretty striking change in terms of what we're hearing from party leaders. >> sean sullivan, melanie zanona, stay with us. we'll be back to talk about more top issues in washington. the day's other top story, michael flynn's guilty plea in the special counsel russia investigation. nbc justice correspondent pete williams has new details on what prompted flynn to reach out to russian ambassador sergey kislyak during the transition. >> reporter: no handcuffs for michael flynn. he surrendered and walked into the federal courthouse in washington to plead guilty to a single charge, lying to the fbi, moving the special counsel investigation into the white house and raising new questions about top aide jared kushner. flynn now admits that four days into his job at white house national security adviser, he denied having two separate contacts back in december with

russia's am bbassador to the u., sergey kislyak, which, in fact, he did. the first, december 22nd, someone described as a very senior member of the presidential transition team directed flynn to urge foreign governments to oppose a u.n. security council resolution against israel. flynn has now admitted he contacted kislyak and urged russia to oppose it. sources familiar with the matter say that very senior official was jared kushner, the president's son-in-law. the second contact came a week later when president obama announced new sanctions on russia because of its election meddling. flynn has told prosecutors that senior transition officials asked him to contact kislyak again and urged the russians to go easy on their response to avoid souring relations with the incoming trump administration. four days later, russia's president putin said he would not retaliate. that prompted donald trump to tweet about putin. great move, i always knew he was very smart. two people familiar with the events say it was a senior transition official at

mar-a-lago, k.t. mcfarland, who told flynn to contact the russians that second time. the president has said it wasn't him. >> did you direct mike flynn to discuss sanctions with the russian ambassador prior to your inauguration? >> no, i didn't. >> reporter: former fbi director james comey says just two days before that comment, the president urged him in a private meeting to let any flynn investigation go. >> i understood him to be saying that what he wanted me to do was drop any investigation connected to flynn's account of his conversations with the russians. >> reporter: flynn, a former trump insider, is now obligated to tell anything he knows about potential collusion with the russians. the detail in the guilty plea shows he's already cooperating with mueller's prosecutors, and there's a big incentive for him to keep talking. >> he's looking at five years in jail if he's not completely truthful and cooperative. second, if he fails to meet the requirements of the plea agreement, the prosecutors can pull that agreement, and they can charge him with other crimes. >> reporter: in a statement, flynn says his plea is, quote, in the best interests of my

family and of our country. he says, i recognize the actions i acknowledged in court today were wrong and through my faith in god, i'm working to set things right. >> that was pete williams. let's bring in former federal prosecutor, currently a white-collar criminal attorney. great to have you this morning, john. tell us, what could this plea deal mean for president trump and the white house? >> well, this is a prosecutorial prize for mr. mueller because flynn provides a vast array of information, someone who was involved in the campaign, someone who was involved in the white house in the early period of the administration. so he's now going to be debriefed extensively. they're going do drill down incredibly on all aspects of his involvement with the campaign and the administration. he's going to have to answer a lot of questions. >> and what would typically be included in the terms of this kind of plea agreement? what would mueller's team want from flynn, and what might he gain in return? >> well, the biggest question is why did you lie. there was no reason for him to

lie to the fbi. so he's going to be asked, were you told to lie? did somebody know what you were going to say? what were the reasons that you weren't completely honest with the fbi? that's -- those are the critical questions that investigators have to know about. >> and lying to the fbi obviously is just basic 101 in washington. now, there were previous reports saying that mueller's team was investigati investigating flynn's work for the turkish government. is that still a threat for michael flynn? >> well, what was interesting in the plea agreement is that the issue of any kind of kidnapping, which came up, doesn't seem to be part of the plea agreement. but they did give him a pass on failing to register as a foreign agent. so that's not in the game anymore. he's not going to be prosecuted for that. >> in this fallout over the plea deal, jared kushner is facing new scrutiny for his directives to flynn. how much of a legal threat is kushner now facing, and will investigators be turning their attention toward him next? >> well, the investigators are going to turn their attention to

everybody in the white house. this is now a question of whether or not obstruction of justice occurred. not so much the contacts with the russians but whether or not senior white house officials lied about those contacts. that's really the critical issue. >> and john, are you surprised that michael flynn was dealt with so differently than paul manafort? >> well, he was dealt with differently because he pled guilty and he's cooperating. so he got the kit gloves treatment, and he really got a very, very favorable deal. he's going to get probation at the end of the day. he'll never do a day in prison. >> just amazing. john, thank you so much for shedding light on this. i appreciate it. and what the flynn plea deal means for the president's son-in-law, we have new questions about the russia probe. that's coming up next.

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the administration's effort to continually dismiss all these figures, i'll be anxious to hear what they say when their national security adviser pleads guilty in terms of lying to the fbi about his contacts with russians. >> senator mark warner, viet chairman of the intel committee, on the heels of mike flynn's guilty plea in the special counsel russia information. ty cobb, president trump's attorney, released a statement in part saying, michael flynn, a former national security adviser at the white house for 25 days during the trump administration and a former obama administration official, entered a guilty plea to a single count of making a false statement to the fbi. nothing about the guilty plea or the charge implicates anyone other than mr. flynn. let's bring in sean sullivan and melanie zanona. ty cobb's statement specifically referred to flynn as a former obama administration. add it all up, and what does it

mean for the president and possible fallout for the white house? >> what you're seeing here is a classic political statement. the white house is racing to distance themselves from flynn. they're saying he's a former obama administration official, that he only worked in the white house for a few days, but i think that argument is getting harder and harder to make. unlike george papadopoulos, who had to plead guilty earlier this year and was a low-level play, and unlike manafort, who was charged with things that happened before the campaign, these charges directly relate to flynn's time in the white house and in the transition. this is a white house official. this is someone who actually worked in the white house. so this is a very big problem for the trump administration and a turning point in the presidency. this probe is going deeper. mueller is working methodically up the food chain, and the question is who's next. >> sean, what are you hearing about how the white house received this news? can they really have been caught off guard since nbc reported a few weeks ago that charges in the flynn aspect of mueller's

investigation were in the works? >> well, they did appear to be caught by surprise, at least somewhat, by this development, but you're right. this investigation, the scope of this investigation, the reach of this investigation has been getting closer and closer to the president, to the white house in recent weeks. so you know, this shouldn't come as a surprise to a lot of white house officials, a lot of the people who are working closely with the president. and even the president himself. i agree with melanie. this is somebody in michael flynn who was a principle figure not only in the transition but also in the early days of the white house. any attempt by the white house to try to down play that, you know, is sort of at odds with the facts. here's somebody who was making serious, you know, having serious conversations with foreign officials during the transition and then also during his time in the white house. so you know, he was obviously present for a lot of important

meetings, conversations, private deliberations at the white house when he was there and also during the transition. so those raise questions about what he knew, who he talked to, and what he might be telling mueller and his team, what he might be willing to tell them as it pertains to this larger investigation. >> melanie, let's talk about those questions. does mike flynn's guilty plea answer any russia collusion questions? >> well, what we saw in the plea yesterday was very small. it was a light charge. it suggests that he is providing some substantial evidence against someone else higher up in the food chain. but i also think that it raises a lot of questions. we know that he was making these calls to the russian ambassador regarding the u.n. vote, regarding the sanctions. who was directing these calls? did trump know about them? who knew what when is going to be the basic question for investigators. and lying about it, was there an obstruction of justice charge here. these are the little tiles of the mosaic that the mueller team is starting to piece together.

he probably knows more at this point than we do, but it certainly will be interesting to watch in the coming weeks to see who else might fall, who's the next domino to fall. i think jared kushner is going to be one of the potential targets here. we know that the mueller team interviewed him earlier this month. i have a sense that he, mueller, probably knew all the answers to his questions at that point by the time he was asking kushner. so if he was not telling the truth and there's evidence to the contrary, that could be big trouble for kushner. >> and sean, let's talk about this food chain. is there any conventional wisdom on robert ruler or investigators are looking at vice president mike pence, who has maintained that flynn lied to him? >> it's not clear at this point whether they're looking specifically at pence or the things that he said, but certainly this development, this escalation in this investigation when it comes to flynn is going to raise questions about other administration officials, what they knew about his contacts with the russians, what they

said they knew about his contacts. it's a moment where now we're going to re-examine what people have said, in what settings, about what they knew, and why they said it. at this point in the investigation, it doesn't seem like anybody really in the administration at a high level is immune to questions, scrutiny, whether it's the vice president, whether it's jared kushner, whether it's anybody else. >> melanie, i just want to go back real quick to what you mentioned about jared kushner. knowing what we know now, is mueller's team laying the tracks when they met with jared kushner last month? >> they very well could be. i think that's what the white house should really be nervous about here with what we saw yesterday. and look, kushner has come under scrutiny for a whole litany of things. he didn't provide documents to congressional investigators. he hasn't been forthcoming on his security clearance. multiple times he had to change it. if there was no wrongdoing, why do they keep covering it up and lying, and why do all the roads keep pointing back to russia? that's a question mueller's team will definitely be investigating. >> we have many more questions to be answered.

this might take a while to get through. melanie zanona, sean sullivan, great to have you here this morning. thank you so much. >> thanks. >> thanks. the senate passes the tax plan, but who benefits the most, and what is the next step in getting it to the president's desk? alright, i brought in high protein to help get us moving. ...and help you feel more strength and energy in just two weeks! i'll take that. -yeeeeeah! ensure high protein. with 16 grams of protein and 4 grams of sugar. ensure. always be you.

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breaking overnight, the senate has passed a nearly $1.5 trillion tax bill. the bill is historic in scope and a huge win for the gop and the president. nbc's garrett hake is on capitol hill with the details. not one democrat voted for this bill. it was 51-49. what are the republicans saying? >> reporter: well, republicans are frustrated, they say, that no democrats crossed over to vote with them on this bill, but frankly, they're excited and relieved this morning to have this bill across at least one more finish line. it's been a huge priority for republicans, especially since their health care repeal efforts

failed, to get something out of this congress this year, and the tax bill has been their baby. late last night, really this morning around 2:00, mitch mcconnell, the senate majority leader, came forward to say he considers this a promise kept. take a listen. >> we have an opportunity now to make america more competitive and to keep jobs from being shipped offshore and provide substantial relief to the middle class. i'm totally confident this is a revenue neutral bill. i think it's going to be a revenue producer. as we've said over and over and over again, the $1.5 trillion deficit to be filled only requires us to go 0.4% over the next ten years. goodness gracious. that's very much achievable. >> reporter: now, the fight over this bill isn't over. the house and the senate have to work together to iron out some differences between their

versions, and some of those differences are significant. they don't even agree on how many tax brackets there should be on the individual side of the code. and making this more complicated for themselves, they want to get this done by christmas. the president even tweeting this morning his congratulatory note, saying he looks forward to signing the bill by christmas. so it's going to be a scramble up here on capitol hill to try to get this done. >> by christmas, that sounds like it's a little too soon. don't you think there's a longer timeline for that, and if so, what would they have to put into this to actually get it done that quickly? >> reporter: well, it's an optimistic timeline. the reason they might be able to do it is a lot of this process now is going to happen behind closed doors, while the rest of the senate and house move on to other issues. these conference committees will be hammering some of this out. so it can get done, but again, there's just so many opportunities for this to trip up. it's one of these situations where almost everything has to go right. but for republican leaders, again, they are happy to at least have this opportunity after not getting this far on

the health care fight. >> garrett haake, great to have you here this morning. thank you for that report. >> you bet. that'll do it for me. i'm dara brown. thanks for watching. at the top of the hour, it is hugh hewitt. stay with us. it's "your business" with jj ramberg. ( ♪ ) this time of year is all about family. and we'd like you to be part of ours. so our chevy employee discount is now available to everyone. this holiday season, you pay what we pay. and not a cent more. we're so happy to share this with you. hey, mom and dad deserve some toys too. it's our way of saying happy holidays. and welcome to the family. the chevy family. get the chevy employee discount for everyone today.

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