never asked james comey to stop investigating michael flynn. it was an active warning for the president on social media. we'll dive into other tweets here in just a minute, but will this calm the firestorm around the president's actions during his first week in office? we'll go live to the white house to jeff bennett standing by. the president says he didn't write that particular tweet in question. who did? >> reporter: that's right, david. john dow, the president's personal attorney, tells nbc news he was the one who crafted the tweet. he dictated the text of the tweet to social media director dan scovino. he mistakingly con flated flynn's lies to the vice president that the notion that flynn also lied do the fbi. that is the explanation. >> geoff, i mentioned the barrage of tweets, walk us through the other subjects the president waded into on this sunday morning. >> reporter: it is a grab bag of

grievances. the president lashing out against hillary clinton, against the former fbi director james comey, against what the president perceives to be fake news. all in an effort to recast the russia investigation on the president's own terms, to undercut the credibility of the special counsel to say in some way that robert mueller is biased. why is that? because you have an instance, of course, where the president's former national security adviser is pleading guilty to lying to fbi agents about his contacts with the russians before president trump took office. >> geoff bennett there at the white house. if the president did fire michael flynn for as he tweeted yesterday, lying to the vice president and the fbi, then that raises an interesting question, how did he know about flynn's lie to federal agents? after all, details of flynn's fbi interview which he denied discussing sanctions with the russian ambassador did not become -- this comes after the

president tweeted this morning. we get started with a series of reports from michael flynn contacting russians in presidential denials. >> reporter: what do you think of reports that general flynn had discussions on the russian sanctions before you were sworn in? >> i don't know about it. >> this was an act of trust. whether or not he actually misled the vice president was the issue. and that was ultimately what led to the president asking for and accepting the resignation of general flynn. that's it. pure and simple. it was a matter of trust. >> mike flynn, i asked for his resignation and he gave it. i don't think he did anything wrong. >> we believe that general flynn was compromised with respect to

the russians. to state the obvious, you don't want your national security adviser compromised with the russians. >> and then this, the bombshell testimony of james comey one day before appearing in front of the senate intelligence committee, the now former fbi director revealed that the president asked him to let the flynn matter go just one day after michael flynn was fired. >> i don't think it is for me to say whether the conversation i had with the president was an effort to obstruct. i took it as a very disturbing thing, very concerning, but that's a conclusion i'm sure the special counsel will work towards. >> we have our own team of lawyers to break this down. the u.s. attorney and msnbc contributor barbara mcquaid, author of "the constitution today," keila molar, and barb mcquaid, let me start with that date. to what finer focus this comes after what we learned on friday? >> well, a couple of things.

one is, if there's an obstruction of justice here, there are two key elements here. what we said is to teach our law students, every crime has an act and a mens rea. one of the things we learned on friday is not only did trump know that michael flynn was involved in this, but perhaps other members of his administration were also involved in communication with the russians, if so, that adds to his motivation and his intent to commit an obstruction of justice. so it seems like based on the tweet yesterday where he may have inadvertently disclosed that he knew that michael flynn committed a crime by lying to the fbi, today he seems to be treating and attacking the other element of the effect, the actus reas to say i never told comey to let this go. so it seems if he's lost the mens rea defense, now he's focusing on the ac turkstus rea

defense. >> let me ask you about the justice department of this inquiry. what do you make of how this conversation shifted again in light of what we learned on friday and in light of the tweet we heard yesterday? >> i think constitutionally people are getting way ahead of themselves. the president of the quiunited states is actually part of the criminal justice system. he plays a unique role. for example, he can pardon people, people who are clearly guilty. even people who are clearly guilty and are his advisers and who did things at his behest. he's ultimately judged by the electora electorate, by a court of impeachment. i hope we hear soon, but casper wineberger was pardoned by george h.w. bush. and richard nixon was pardoned by gerald ford. if a president of the united states decides, okay, i candon'

want to pardon someone and want enforcement priorities to be x, y and z for reasons of state, unless there's some specific and corrupt motivation, which is going to really have to be shown in a real way, it's okay for a president of the united states to actually have enforcement priorities and even to let clearly guilty people go free if there are perhaps reasons for it, or if not, then we have to talk about whether gerald ford obstructed justice. so whether george h.w. bush obstructed justice. or for that matter, president bill clinton who pardoned his own brother on his way out obstructed justice. this goes back to up george washington. people who are clearly guilty are pardoned all the time and not prosecuted all the time. and actually, just think about drug laws or anything else, we do not prosecute all crimes and there are reasons we sometimes don't do that. >> how familiar is this all to

you? >> too familiar and it's not a happy day. it's not a happy day when aides to the president of the united states or candidate for the president are indicted by the united states government. it's not a happy day. it's not a happy day when a tweet goes out that suggests that the president knew that flynn had lied before it came out that he had lied. it's a serious situation. and i'm troubled that we have a lawyer to the president who said, i wrote the tweet. i made the confession. i'm the one who basically implicated the president. the president is not guilty. that's just nonsense. as far as the pardon power, we

are there. but i just want to say this, the president may have the power to pardon people. but if he doesn't, to use the professor's term, for the wrong motive for the purpose of obstruction of justice and to prevent justice from being done, then it's a crime. it could be an obstruction of justice. because the president has the power to do it, doesn't mean that he can't be criminal. >> let many ask you about that, we're hearing from the white house that one of the president's counsel offered the tweet as the president just said. is this plausible deniability if we are saying here, perhaps the president obstructed justice in the context of the tweet, he can slough it off and say this was my counsel who wrote it? how salient is that argument? >> well, i don't want to accuse a lawyer john dowd of making a false statement here, but it is curious a lawyer would go out and say something like that. all the extraneous statements are dangerous because they can be used against you at some point.

if trump authored the tweet and sent it out and said he fired flynn because he lied to the fbi, that could be used against him later as some evidence, certainly not the only evidence, but some of the evidence against him in an on instruction of justice count. so if it instead can be contributed to the lawyer, then that can't be used as directly against donald trump and he can say, that wasn't me, that was my lawyer trying to help explain the situation to the public. so i think it is potentially a strategy to help minimize the harm that it can do for president trump. >> i want to have you response to that, you're toiling in the trenches in new haven with would-be lawyers as they work on finding their way around legally, as i read the tweet from yesterday one more time here, i had to fire general flynn because he lied to the vice president and the fbi. he's pled guilty to those lies. it's a shame because his actions during the transaction were lawful with nothing to hide. they are using latin phrases there. this doesn't sound like legalese to me as i read it. >> well, lawyers do some things.

some of them are prosecutors and my two colleagues here on the panel are prosecutors. and if you are a hammer, everything looks like a nail. everything looks like a potential crime. i'm a constitutional person that looks at things differently. a sitting president in my view is not subject to ordinary criminal prosecution while sitting. that they are subject to the press, do congressional oversight, which may be vigorous, and to the court of impeachment. if you are talking about the mechanisms for keeping presidents in line as a practicality, frankly, we need to think about whether the republicans actually think that anything wrong has happened. because unless they do, there is no impeachment that will happen. nothing is going to happen because last time i checked they do control both the house and the senate. now, there's going to be an election coming up in november. you know, a year from now, and if you want more oversight, definitely vote for the democratic party. because if the house is

controlled by democrats, there will be more oversight congressionally than if the house is controlled by republicans. if you think it's a witch hunt, vote for republican. but the things that happened over the last 72 hours suggest it's no witch hunt. >> here's a little from the interview that chuck todd with the senate ranking committee, dianne feinstein, and he asked her, in light of what we learned, if things are moving to impeachment. we'll look at what the senator from california had to say on that subject. >> i believe it's time for us to finish our investigation. and i don't want to the bias any part of the investigation with premature thinking. >> some caution and trepidation there from dianne feinstein. what do you make of where we are in this whole process? did things move forward markedly on friday with the plea from general flynn? >> definitely. and just to respond to the professor, i'm not sure i agree with him, but in any case, the impeachment we went through with richard nixon was temperature it

inially moved forward by the actions of the special prosecutor at that time. the actions of mueller are critical. the statements of the president vis-a-vis are critical to moving the public, which will insist that congress act. and by the way, we're talking about obstruction of justice, but another crime came up during water gate where the president was told about a criminal activity, president nixon, and did nothing. and that was called misprisonment of a felony. if that tweet came from donald trump, if he ratified it and knew what it said and sent it out, and he knew that michael flynn had lied to the fbi, which is a crime, and he did nothing about it and, in fact, tried to conceal it and obstruct it by catching it a witch hunt, that could be a misprisonment felony.

another crime. all the criminal activities or potential activities will be reviewed by a special prosecutor and create an enormous impotus if that is to happen. >> thank you to all of you for joining me. still ahead, new reports from the e-mails from the president's inner circle saying a senior aide talked about the thrown election. how the white house is responding to intentions turning to other e-mails. and the president's tweets about crooked hillary are being receive in the aftermath of michael flynn's guilty plea.

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michael flip's guilty plea for lying to the federal government was considered by many in the national spotlight to be a huge deal. tune in tonight at 9:00 p.m. eastern time. here's a preview. >> president trump's former national security adviser michael flynn has just pleaded guilty to a charge of lying to the fbi. >> michael flynn at one time donald trump's most loyal foreign policy adviser now pledging full cooperation with the president's antagonist special counsel robert mueller. >> today's news may change the calculus for the president, legally and split you cannily. >> he has information about president trump, he has

information about the former campaign manager, paul manafort, maybe about jared kushner and donald trump jr. >> a former lieutenant general. >> i thought to myself, this is the best intel officer i ever met. >> that could now implicate his commander in chief in the russia investigation. >> you joined donald trump in these intelligence briefings. you didn't learn from any of these briefings that it was russia? >> those issues did not come up. and that's the extent of what i can talk about. >> this is the first time that this investigation has gone into the white house. >> from insurgent battlefield to political mine field, the complicated journey of michael flynn. >> he goes from a pinnacle of helping defeat our enemies, now he's mired in this political mail storm that we don't know how it's going to end. >> all right. we'll go to retired u.s. general

barry mcafter frcaffrey. you said he was the greatest intel officer you ever met. what did you see in him? what did general mcchrystal see in him while he was in iraq? >> look, the guy is smart,ic plaquable, experienced, courageous, mono focused on pursuing jihadists. mcchrystal and flynn and the joint special operations command are a major reason we didn't have another dozen 9/11s. and by the way, they stayed overseas fighting for a better part of ten years. so i understood that. now, subsequently, though, i think you got a defense intelligence agency, he started to act erratic by all accounts. he selectively read material to determine the course of action he already wanted to come out.

then finally when he got into the trump campaign and acting in a very bizarre manner. and the military guys say, don't do that. it's a sad day for general flynn and for the people that have worked for him and admire him. >> i want to go back to the moment when he was at the defense intelligence agency. i imagine you and others had high hope for him in that position. what went wrong or why wasn't it a good fit for him? >> i don't know. i talked to a four-star having said by the way publicly how much i admired him when he was in afghanistan. i had a 100 briefing with him and he knocked my socks off with how smart and capable he was. they wondered if he had a mental health problem. and that could be an explanation, by the way, tremendous anger at the obama team.

he was right and said isis was coming to get us. and the isis team said you are fired. by the way, justifiably so, but anger consumed him and everyone that was part of the ball that brought him down. a lot is human emotion that led him down the wrong path. >> let me ask you about the relationship he developed with then president trump. how did it come about? and why did he hit it off so quickly? >> well, by all accounts, you saw general flynn being interviewed on fox tv multiple times. and like the aggressive in-your-face manner with which he was talking about these issues and right into the family, and the family said, let's anoint this guy and bring in. i said multiple days having dealt with three white house

administrations, there is no way a national security adviser one giving hourly updates. they call them at night and wake them when there is an issue. he has to explain who knew what about the contacts and why would he have lied to the fbi? they have toen cover what they were trying to figure out. >> positions customarily held by civilians, are you still concerned about that? have you concerns about that lessens approaching the one-year

term by the way, i think all of us r us, understand the armed forces and won't seek war. so i almost come in at the opposite hr where this should be a relief for the american people. >> general, thank you. you can watch "headliners" tonight at 9:00 on msnbc. and president trump's transition team is raising some red flags.

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to say this. lock him up! >> that was "saturday night live" recapping the controversies that followed president trump to the white house and their version of "a christmas carol." pressure is mounting up against robert mueller's investigation as president trump took to twitter saying, quote, nothing happens to hillary clinton. he tweeted this, so general flynn lies to the fbi and his life is destroyed while crooked hillary clinton, on that now famous fbi holiday "interrogation" with no swearing in and no recording lies. he went on in a following tweet, quote, many people in our country are asking what the justice department is going to do about the fact that totally crooked hillary after receiving a subpoena from the united states congress deleted and acid washed 33,000 e-mails. no justice! well, turning now to a new report from the new york times, according to the newspaper, a conservative operative with ties to the national rifle association told a trump

campaign adviser he could arrange a back channel meeting with vladimir putin and trump in the e-mail in 2016 where the same operative wrote this. quote, russia is quietly but actively seeking a dialogue with the u.s. that isn't forthcoming under the current administration. joining me now is democratic strategist and roosevelt institute fellow duringduran wa. and amy, i want to ask you as well, i heard this is untoured but not illegal. what is the process of what we're learning about? >> well, from little we do know, it seems like what happened here is not illegal. you have the white house attorney that is clearly saying what they did was not illegal during the transition period. there is a transition guide book as well that is out there that you can read through, and it says what happened here was not

illegal. so, you know, it will be interesting to see what else he has to say. >> interesting. and i see your hesitation there. you can talk about something untoured or illegal or perhaps un-american, but there was a tacid agreement not to go around the administration in office to tell the state department if there was an outreach. how do you as a republican react to the fact that this did happen? >> well, from also what has been reported by the white house attorney is that there was not an agreement to not do this. so i'm not exactly sure who to believe with this statement, but that's what the white house attorney has said. once again, what they have done is not illegal as far as what the attorneys have stated, what the white house transition guide book has stated. but almost viewed as malpractice if they weren't already talking with foreign leaders during the

transition period. >> let me ask you a bit about this issue, in particular, we know there are special interests in this. this is a new wrinkle to that or something new that members of the nra are charged with doing. how do you react to that? and what does this say to the role it plays in american politics? >> it puts a spotlight on how powerful the nra is and not just on guns in this issue but a range of issues. now the nra is moving into foreign policy with own it have top leaders almost boasting about his relationship with the top kremlin affiliated officials. so that seems to be a curious new wrinkle into the relationship of the nra rights of the republican party. just to go back to the previous issue, yes, maybe it's not illegal, but it is unprecedented to have a transition team conducting foreign policy while there is another sitting u.s. president. if president-elect barack obama had done this with george w. bush and trying to undermine the

bush administration's foreign policy during the transition phrase, there would be an outcry of anger from the republican party. it's a bit hypocritical to suggest that. no, it's not illegal. no, it is very unprecedented. we haven't seen this before in american politics. >> i want you to situate if you can over what we have heard in the last week. and other cases of attempting the soft reach through the nra, what does that say about the vulnerability of this campaign and the transition of the apparatus? >> it speaks to this. you add up flynn, jared kushner, the nra operative, katie mcfarland, who i am sure we'll get to, it speaks to a bit of sloppiness, to incompetence. general mccaffrey said general flynn is capable, but as of friday he pled guilty to lying to the fbi, for someone smart and capable to lead guilty to lying about contexts with

russia, then we have all the other e-mails from donald jr., etc., this is a sloppy and incompetent administration. we have known this throughout the year if we look at the no legislative accomplishments yet, the lack of appointments and the key positions on the field. that started with the transition team and has continued through the first year of the presidency. >> it's a conversation about the rogue actor and who is working independently. thank you for that. thank you for joining me. it's been two months since hurricane maria slammed into puerto rio. and today one-third of the island's population remains without power. andrew cuomo just returned from his third visit to the territory and is joining me on the telephone. governor, you have been there three times now and i wonder if you can just describe how the recovery effort is going. you have assessed the needs there in the past two trips, are things improving? and if so, where? having a bit of trouble there with the governor's line.

>> hello, can you hear me? >> yeah, i can hear you. where are you seeing improvement here on your third visit to puerto rico? >> well, you see some improvement on the ground. the numbers would say there's improvement, about two-thirds of the island now has power. water at one time was unavailable. now most of the island has water even though they have to boil it before they can drink it. so there is some progress on the numbers. but once again, when you're on the island, you have a truly desperate situation that still exists two months later. and we should have had a better federal response than we have. >> let me ask you about the conversation that you had there among governors. you spent time with the governor of puerto rico, what has he said to you about the federal outreach you're describing there? i know you have been working with him, other governors have been working with him, what has he said about the interface he's

had with the white house, with the federal government, the president is making a trip to puerto rico well now over a month ago. >> well, the governor was very diplomatic about the way he handled it. and i understand his situation. i can be a little more candid in my situation from where i sit. i did disaster assistance to the federal government during the current secretary. i know what we can do when we want to do it. and i'm telling you in my opinion that the federal response has not been what it should be. you know, we're not talking about a foreign country here. this is puerto rico. they are american citizens. we helped texas, we helped florida. puerto rico are american citizens also. and out of sight, out of mind, they deserve better than this. the congress is going to take up the supplemental appropriation. i think puerto rico is at the top of the list because this is

not just an incident for puerto rico. this could change the trajectory of the economy of the island for the foreseeable future. you have a couple hundred thousand people who left the island. they may not come back. so if the business and tourism industry don't see progress quickly, this could be truly disruptive of the economy of puerto rico for years to come. >> let me talk about the u.s. economy more broadly while you were down there. the u.s. senate early in the morning voting to pass the tax proposal advanced by senate republicans. something you have been in opposition to. walk me through the interface you'll have over the next few weeks as the piece goes to reconciliation. what is the case you're going to make to lawmakers from new york state, both in the senate and the u.s. house? >> well, two points. first, on the overall national level, this is a fraud on the

american people, right? this was marketed as a tax break for the middle class. as soon as you read the bill of anybody, anybody who reads the bill before they vote on it, it is a tax cut for the rich. for the top 1% and for the rich corporations. 50% of the tax benefit goes to the top 1%. 50% of the benefit goes to the top 1%. there's no getting around that fact. they then argue, well, if you stimulate the economy with the rich, the benefits will ultimately befold the middle class and the working families. yes, that's called trickle-down. we've heard that. we know what that is. and it didn't work. so this is nothing new with the matter of philosophy. they didn't bring the new conservative gospel. they're reading from the old testament of the conservative

principles on trickle-down. and the governor of new york, as the governor of california would tell you or the 12 states that are going to pay the price for this tax cut, because it eliminates the deductibility of state income and property tax, it is devastating. >> so if you want to call -- if you were to call congressman tom reid of the 23rd district, from the finger lakes region, for instance, what would you say to him about what his approach should be as this goes to conference? >> well, remember, in new york, for example, a majority of the republican congressmen voted against it. a majority of the republican congressmen voted against it. so it's clearly been for the state, bad for the state. if their own foot soldiers balk the leadership, reed is one of

the people who did not buck the political leadership. and what i would say to reid is, remember you get elected for representing the people in your district. and not to carry the water for your political leadership. >> lastly -- in the time that we have left here, i'll ask you about the cloud casting a shadow over policymaking in washington for some time now. the latest undulation is michael flynn pleading guilty here last week. what do you make of that happening? and where we are in this russia investigation? >> look, i'm the former attorney general of new york, was a former district attorney, i say let the investigations play out. we'll find out where this goes. everybody is guessing. lying to the fbi, that's a crime. where can they go with that? we don't know. and we'll let the investigation play out. but let's not distract from the

real damage being done, which is if the tax policy goes into effect, it brings us back to conservative trickle-down on steroids. and it is extraordinary damage to the 12 states that finance it. which coincidentally, happen to be democratic state that is the president lost. i think this administration is good at distraction. even if it is a negative, it's still distracting from the primary negative. the primary negative is the tax bill. flynn is the problem, the russia investigation is a problem, we have a problem with that and that will play itself out. the tax bill is transformative in a way we haven't seen in decades and it is all there. >> governor, thank you so much. that's governor andrew cuomo joining us from his third trip

to puerto rio after the storm ravaged that island. still ahead, plea deals to tax plans. plenty to talk about on the sunday circuit. we'll delve into the hot topics in a moment. stay with us. more people shop online for the holidays than ever before. (clapping) and the united states postal service delivers more of those purchases to homes than anyone else in the country. ( ♪ ) because we know, even the smallest things are sometimes the biggest. only fleet enemas feature the lubricated gentle glide tip for comfortable relief in minutes. not hours. and an ez-squeeze bottle for gentle, simple, fast relief. fleet enemas. the start of fast relief.

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philadelphia cream cheese. made with fresh milk and real cream makes your recipes their holiday favourites. the holidays are made with philly. welcome back. i'm david gura. president trump unleashing another tweet storm this morning among his intended targets, former fbi director james comey. the president tweeted, quote, i never asked comey to stop investigating flynn. just more fake news covering another comey lie.

also included in his nearly one dozen tweets and re-tweets, the justice department, the news media and hillary clinton. meantime, questions continue to circle over who wrote the initial tweet reacting to the guilty plea of the former national security adviser. that tweet set off alarms because it implied the president had lied to the fbi. well, this morning on "meet the press" california senator dianne feinstein talked about the disarray surrounding the current administration. >> the concern rises with the day. the concern about this white house rises -- >> you're concerned about this president's ability to do the job rises by the day? >> oh, yes. oh, yes. i have been here for 25 years now. there is a kind of instability unpredictability. it's one issue after the other. >> joining us now to break it all down, we have the national political reporter of bloomberg news. and amanda is here, a legal

correspondent from npr. you spend an awful lot of time on capitol hill talking to members and talking to their staffs as well do. they echo what we heard there from the senior senator from california? >> pretty much, david. i think the question democrats are asking is some variation of what howard baker asked of richard nixon during the watergate era? what did the president know? when did he know it? the fact that president trump tweeted yesterday that he, as he himself suggested, that he knew that flynn lied to the fbi raises all sorts of questions as to why he didn't act, why he didn't say something then, and why if the reporting is true, he had asked then fbi director james comey to let it go. among republicans, reaction was a little more cautious and muted. senator mcconnell was on the sunday shows today simply deferring to the committee in the senate that is working on this. senator graham was also on the sunday shows and urged the president not to pardon michael flynn. so republicans are being more

careful about their base still very fond of president trump. 80% of them support trump so republicans don't want to get too ahead of this. >> dianne feinstein was asked where she thinks the investigation is going with regard to obstruction of justice. let's see what her response was. >> i think what we're beginning to see is the beginning of putting together of a case of obstruction of justice. i think we see this in the indictments, the four indictments and pleas that have just taken place and some of the comments that are being made. i see it in the hyper phonetic attitude of the white house, the comments that are made, the continual tweets, and i see it most importantly in what happened with the firing of director comey. and it is my belief that that is

directly because he did not agree to lift the cloud of the russia investigation. >> she seemingly sees it everywhere and wonder if you do as well. how did you react to the plea from michael flynn on friday and the tweet we saw yesterday? >> well, it is a major shoe dropping. and remember, there are potential crimes that michael flynn was not charged with. his son was viewed as a potential target. so tind pendent counsel, the special prosecutor, has a lot of leverage to make sure he lives up to whatever proper he makes. this is a pretty much a hall pass in terms of a plea deal. and the crimes that michael flynn could have been charged with. they had to think they were getting something in exchange. and the president said, what are they getting in exchange? you don't make a plea deal like

that until your lawyers and you say, look, this is what i have to offer. it's called a proffer. and i don't know what is in the proffer. but it certainly looks like there's a fairly deliberate marching towards something. but i don't want to put the cart in front of the horse. i mean, the special prosecutor's job is to as best as he can find the truth. i think the consensus is that you probably can't indict a sitting president, but you can make him an unindicted co-conspirator. you can make him an unindicted something and bring that to the congress of the united states, which at the moment is controlled by republicans who definitely do not want to impeach this president. but that's a long way away, which is why i keep talking about not putting the cart before the horse. >> let me ask you about that and have you sort of situate us. we are looking forward to donald

trump jr.'s testimony before the house intelligence committee. there are all the investigations happening at the same time, where do we stand? >> well, i think that the understanding about this plea deal is a clear message that the mueller investigation is really starting to kind of gather their threads together. so a plea like this is not merely about what information flynn might be giving the government in exchange for this very lenient plea deal, it's also about sending a message to others who might be testifying, others who might also be meeting with the investigators about what information they have, how close they might be to making certain other charges, and basically, to say time is running short. if you're going to make a deal, now is the time, now is the time to let us know what's going on. >> good to speak with all of you. sahil kapur, amanda talk and

nina totenburg. and filling jeff sessions' seat. the polling from alabama next. i wouldn't go that far. are you there? he's probably on mute. yeah... gary won't like it. why? because he's gary. (phone ringing) what? keep going! yeah... (laughs) (voice on phone) it's not millennial enough. there are a lot of ways to say no. thank you so much. thank you! so we're doing it. yes! "we got a yes!" start saying yes to your company's best ideas. let us help with money and know-how, so you can get business done. american express open.

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drill between the u.s. and south korea is leading to the "brink of a nuclear war." it calls the drill a "all-out provocation." in nine days, alabama voters will decide on their next senator. the most recent poll shows doug jones beating embattled republican roy moore 50%-47% within the reasonable margin of error. and a controlled implosion for the pontiac silverdome failed to bring down the top section. the company responsible said there were wiring issues. the detroit lions played there from the mid-'70s until 2001. still ahead, shifting the focus. president trump on a twitter tirade after taking heat on the comments to the firing of michael flynn. we'll have reaction.

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good morning to you. i'm david gura at msnbc headquarters in new york, on a day where the president has tweeted we are still focused on one single tweet from yesterday, this one, where he said he fired michael flynn as security adviser for lying to the vice president and the fbi. well, the implications of that tweet are far-reaching, but first, we go to the white house to nbc's jeff bennett. the white house seems to be back-tracking on this tweet. we're accustomed to figuring out if what the president tweets is a statement from the man himself. sean spicer told us as much early on in this administration.

what are they saying about this tweet in particular? >> reporter: yes, they're saying the tweets speak for themselves. in this case, the president's personal lawyer, john dowd, says he crafted the language for that tweet. he says he dictated the language for that tweet to dan scavino and that dowd mistakenly conflated flynn's lying to the fbi with flynn's lying to the vice president. and we should note that this is not the first time that dowd's name has emerged in the news. you'll rear a couple months ago, he and white house special counsel ty cobb were having lunch at a restaurant here in washington, and the two of them, david, were speaking so loudly about the russia case and how jared kushner figured into it that a "new york times" reporter seated nearby could hear the conversation -- ken vogel -- and ken did what any good reporter would do, took a picture, tweeted it out and i believe wrote a story about it. in this case, john dowd is telling us, because we asked him, how many other tweets have