looks like you trade up on rumors and down on the actual bill. that brings it to an end for me, i'll see you back here tomorrow, you're watching deadline white house next with nicole wallace. hi, everyone. it's 4:00 in new york, donald trump, season of wishful thinking that the special counsel investigation into his campaign and its possible ties to russia will end soon, may end soon, may end very differently this week when his lawyers meet with rob mueller's "the washing, white house lawyers are expected to meet with special counsel robert s. mueller's office. but people familiar with the probe say that such assurances are unlikely and that the meeting could trigger a new, more contentious phase between the special counsel and a

frustrated president. people with knowledge of the investigation said it could last another year, pointing to ongoing cooperation from witnesses such as former trump campaign advisor george popadopoulos and former national security advisor mike flynn, in fact investigators said they expect to work through 2018 at least, according to the post reporting. also today, a stunning account of donald trump's very thin skin from "the washington post." reporting that donald trump was so angry at his own supreme court nominee neil gorsuch for a perceived slight that he thought about pulling back the pick. earlier this year, trump talked about rescinding gorsuch's nomination, venting angrily to advisors and legislators. all of this as republicans finally celebrate a legislative victory, the tax bill passing the house, on its way to the

senate now, but can you win when more than half the country opposes it. covering all those stories and more from "the washington post," ashley parker, and national reporter robert costa, also moderator of "washington week" and an msnbc analyst, and also at the table, nbc and msnbc analyst and white house reporter and msnbc analyst. ashley parker, before i ask you about your incredible reporting under your byline about neil gorsuch, i want to ask you about this meeting that's supposed to take place by the end of the week by donald trump's lawyers that have imprinted in him, this wishful thinking that the investigation into his campaign and its possible ties to russia will be done with the president trump part. how can that possibly be the case and could the rubber meet the road or could they be confronted with a different

reality when they meet with mueller's investigators later this week? >> sure. well it certainly seems unlikely that they're going to get a vindication or an exoneration they have been waiting for in this meeting. it's been billed as a status pro forma meeting, but the probe sort of broadly or ty cobb, the president's lawyer has convinced him that he's going to be cleared of all wrong doing. the president's legal team is basically going there to ask, what else do you need from us? what over information? but it's very likely what the president wants to hear is that there's nothing else and this is all going to be over so but if that is not the case and we have every reason to believe this is not the case, you're likely to see a frustrated, angry

president. >> it feels like what he wants from mueller is a letter exonerating him, what he wanted from comey and the heads of his intel agencies, rogers and coats at a time, and from former fbi director comey, at the time, letters exonerating him personally from any wrong doing on this question of wrong doing of collusion with russia. >> he's said every time he's asked about it, bottom line, there's no collusion, this will be over soon. and it's true, ty cobb has effectively imprinted that on donald trump's brain, but how long will that last? even though ty cobb himself has never betrayed on the sly, a wink, wink, obviously i'm just doing that to keep donald trump calm. the analysis of this is this is a client that can make things worse for him by irrationally

tweeting something and so it's -- it just does not line up with anything that everybody else in washington following this knows about the investigation is that it's far from over. and it really does make you wonder. we have seen, ever since the flynn violeindictment, we have the menagerie, the core sic sycophants, are trying to tarnish mueller, members of congress saying he should be fired. you just wonder at what point does donald trump stop believing ty cobb and listening to other voices out there, this is not over, maybe it is a witch hunt, maybe we need to do something more drastic. >> and this is an investigation that donald trump has smeared as a wish hunt, as eli said, he's got his allies us there, going

very aggressively against -- >> it's a coup. the fbi is like the kg brrb, et cetera, et cetera, yes? >> but these are the people he wants to exonerate him and then what. >> there's clearly tension in the broad orbit of trump's legal team and that set of allies, right? >> it's the fourth string legal team. the ones that are advocating most loudly, complaining about capitol hill, whether the communications, mueller got the communications legally or illegally, those things are on the outer circle. but it's clear this is an unstable situation, that inner circle, the ty cobb, how long does that last and is this meeting a turning point where one of two things happen, either they don't get what they want

from mueller, which is the exoneration that trump looks for and they swing into all out war against bob mueller, everyone's singing from the same song book of just trying to delegitimize the special counsel, bob mueller. and for the last year, whatever they hear from mueller is the exoneration he wants. is it possible that they go in there and he says the case is still ongoing, he says something vague and ambiguous, and trump stands up and says no collusion, my lawyers went to the meeting and they say no collusion. i think there's a aren't chanre chance it will end up in the second category. because bob mueller's office doesn't come out and leak things that way, they won't shoot him do you know if he portrays a false version of the meeting and then on the other side, we could have open warfare, consolidated

warfare. right now ty cobb is not at war with bob mueller, but ty cobb could be more at war with robert mueller two months from now. >> robert mueller and his team would like to interview trump and mike pence as part of their examination into potential collusion between the trump orbit and russia, what do you think the answer would be? >> it's hard to speculate on that. the special counsel may be moving in different directions, as john said, it's hard to say exactly what they're up to. that would be a question that ty cobb and the president would have to decide, along with john dowd, would it be a private interview, a formal interview, would that be a major move by the special counsel to interview those two principles, we have not seen that come close to happen. we have been told by the post, mueller is moving from the outside in, so they're not

ruling it out, those that are familiar with the investigation, but at this point, it's really about the confidants of paul manafort, as the special counsel is really looking to paint a picture of what happened during the campaign and what was the extent of russian interference. >> the president says and maintains publicly all the time that there was no collusion, why wouldn't he offer himself up to bob mueller to defend his innocence? >> he may, he may not. a lot's going to decide after what happens at this meeting. it could lead to a political reaction at first, and it could lead to a legal reaction down the line. there's a lot of tension inside the white house about when this ends, because they believe by passing the tax cut and moving on from alabama, they're starting to move towards 2018, yet this cloud of this russian

investigation continues to be a cloud over them. and the question becomes when do they start to reactavkct viscer. >> i think they're all right reacting viscerally if you listen to donald trump on twitter. >> the goal is to sew public doubt about mueller and his polluters in advance of upcoming criminal trails and to give president political cover . it the worerying and the hand wringing among allies and people like jared kushner have been -- a pr firm, something that ed towards folks were -- others will tell you, abbey lowell

likes to work in conference with -- this larger strategy of delegitimizing the prosecutors to prepare for, to lay the ground work for criminal trials? >> right. i mean this is a matter of perception because perception to a lot of people and perhaps to trump's longevity is going to be a political reality. there's a lot of people out there not talking about bob mueller explicitly the president. he has ripped the fbi, and he's been careful not to name mueller so far. but in softening the ground for people to start to believe. maybe these text messages are -- maybe to -- and his allies are being even more brazen and explicit about it when you have newt gingrich, who criticized this very same behavior in 1998 when democrats were attacking

ken starr, when you have a newt gingrich that bob mueller's credentials are impektabccable a few months ago, it shows you how frightened everyone's gotten, and that's why the goal of delegitimizing the special counsel. >> this is an existential crisis for the president. criminal trials matter, attacking mueller is a legal strategy in some sense, because as you point out, there are criminal trials that we look out. but it's about what happens in 2018. if you look down the road a year from now, the question of whether trump gets impeached or not relies on do republicans maintain control of the house or not.

depending on how this meeting goes, you could see next year, that the 2018 elections will be a referendum. republicans are basically taking the position that the fbi is corrupt, that bob mueller is corrupt, this is a witch hunt, siding with the president, fighting it out to control the house and essentially saying we will never impeach this man. and on the other side, democrats effectively saying we might want to impeach him, but if you leave republicans in charge of congress, it will be off the table. we want to leave the options open for the law to play out. that could be the central defining issue of the 2018 midterms. because that is a giant political argument. and if trump does react as costa suggests in a visceral way, he has not attacked mueller

personally. >> right. >> two months, two weeks, two days from now, that could be different. then you are looking at this kind of armageddon, where the president's survival is really the issue of next faull's congressional elections. >> everything that john hallman said just makes me think about and sort of list all of the collateral damage. actually you had a stunning piece, anyone that wonders just how thin skinned trump is, needs only to read your piece about what he thought about neil gorsuch, and by tweeting at you, about the piece, he proved as eli likes to talk about, trump tells, he proved that you were obviously on to something that he was embarrassed -- i don't think he's capable of embarrassment, but he said that the president worried that gorsuch would not be loyal. and one of the people said, and told aides that -- kneneil gorsuch's perceived slight

against the president, we always depend on you to tie everything together, ashley, attacks on the judiciary, attacks on the rule of law and the judiciary, talk about your piece and the president's response. >> sure, first on the response to our piece by the president, i should say we firmly stand by our reporting or whie wouldn't have published it. keep in mind, tax reform is going through today, but until then, they really had no signature achievements, and whenever they were asked for one, they cited neil gorsuch's appointment to the court. when gorsuch was going through his confirmation process, one of the things he did in a private meeting with the senator was he basically assert eed his judici independence. and that the presidents attacks

on him were disheartening. he felt that gorsuch was being disloyal, he worried that gorsuch would be bad like the rest of them, a liberal like the rest of them, and that gorsuch was not being sufficiently grateful, he was giving him a lifetime appointment and he had not gotten any thanks. and neil gorsuch wrote him a kind of a fun thank you you letter. aides found it and got it to the president. but he was venting to his aides that if gorsuch doesn't want it or doesn't appreciate it maybe he should pull his nomination. >> a story in the "washington post" that i was close to rescinding the nomination of justice gorsuch prior to confirmation is fake news. president president you should invest in signal and confide

because we have so many unnamed sources we can't keep track of them. let me turn to you, robert costa and ask you, just two questions, one, the gorsuch nomination is the big kahuna, it's all he's got with the part of the republican base that was skeptical of him and remains a little wary of sort of the depths of his conservativism. i'll give you the two part because i want you to weigh in on the significance politically on the vote today of the tax bill and the best political asset that republicans have now is a bill with a 33% approval rating. >> when you think about the gorsuch situation, one of my sources joked to me today that every cabinet member is now making sure they write a handwritten christmas letter to president trump. but the stalking of the judiciary and all these conservative judicial figures is

really one of the. >> you really see a president at the beginning of the year. but he ends the year in a much more traditional. with a much more traditional role. this telling us thats as much as he has tried to change washington, it's really the main republican party that controls the power in washington that brings the president along in that direction, and in a sense, he ends the year uniting the gop on traditional terms, even if he remains this outsider and incendiary political figure. >> ashley and robert costa, f thank you for your reporting. is man that warned donald trump about appointing mike flynn as

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there is a cleansing needed in our fbi and department of justice. it needs to be cleansed of individuals who should not just be fired but who need to be taken out in handcuffs. >> i think the fbi's been compromised. forget about shutting down mr. mueller, don't we need to shut down the fbi because it was turned into a kgb type operation by the obama administration?

is the >> this is worse than watergate on a million levels, by the time we uncover all this corruption, it will be watergate on steroids. >> we now have proof that mueller was weaponized to sfroi trump's presidency and to disenfranchise millions of american voters, now if that's true, we have a coup on our hands in america. >> ooh. a coup. we have chris christie, who will answer the question as to whether or not we are witnessing a coup. >> no. >> we're not? >> no. >> answer this question for me. i'm not sure if you watch a lot of fox news, i know you know a lot of the players, not just the president, but chris wray, represented you at bridge gate, you know all the political appointees.

riddle me this, if you're innocent of collusion, why would you mall line or green light attacks that would have the affect of alienating a special counsel that could exonerate you? >> i think the special counsel will ultimately be judged by the results of thinvestigation. if you go back to the clinton special counsel, you will hear the same things that democrats were saying now republicans were saying now. >> i don't remember any democ t republican calling t ining the s the kgb. i mean there is an ongoing smear campaign against the fbi. >> let's talk about that. first off, chris wray, as you

mentioned, i have not only a personal relationship but a professional relationship is going to be an outstanding director of the fbi, he's smart, he's tough, he's principled and he will do a good job as director of the fbi, and he's going to have to put his own stamp on this during his 10-year term as fbi director. but bob mueller made some mistakes here. >> what mistakes did bob mueller make? >> you have to vet the people that are going to be part of your investigation. if it's going to be such a high profile investigation, it doesn't mean that anyone is necessarily partisan or buy yia but you don't that appearance. >> did you ever prosecute -- did you ever consider recusing yourself? >> that's not the same thing. >> why not? >> because i didn't have commentary on an ongoing basis

about the people i was investigating. commentary goes on between human beings, i'm not saying i know what they really believed and what they believed affected their investigation. but we spend a lot of time talking about perception and how perception can be viewed and bob mueller, i have great confidence in, and i'm not changing my view on bob mueller. bob mueller is a good man and i think will do the right thing by this investigation. but it doesn't mean he's perfect. and by allowing people into this investigation who by their own words have a bias towards hillary clinton or against president trump. >> so you think stzrok and wiseman should we removed?

>> i don't think they should be removed. >> if you go to the hillary clinton's victory party -- >> you have spoken at political events and you were prosecuting democrats. >> i never spoke at political events. wun >> so you're not willing to serve in the trump justice department in the future? >> i haven't been offered a trump justice department position. >> you're not disqualified from serving in the justice department because you've been an active political figure. >> you're not talking about just serving the justice department. this is a discreet investigation into the president of the united states. i'm not saying andrew weisman should not be able to serve in the justice department. but what i'm saying is if you're

bob mueller, you want to avoid this discussion at all costs. >> should he ask for the phones of every one of his team and see what they're texting to their friends? >> wait a second, you're assuming they were vetted. how go you know they were vetted? >> we know that bob mueller removed agent stzrok was on their phone. >> that was well before he was assigned this case. that's stuff that you should be asking before hand. this is a very small organization, i'm not talking about a small organization. mueller has a small group of people that he's bringing in, it's getting larger, but you can't tell me that he couldn't sit down and start to ask these people, is there anything that's gone on in the politically charged year, year and a half that would put into question

your objectivity. >> he called lindsay graham, he attacked bernie sanders, jeff sessions and eric holder. would you disqualify an fbi agent from working on an investigation if they had attacked all those people? >> that's a clean once over, but when you go over the substance of his -- >> i have read them all. >> when you look at the substance of his text against the president, it seems to me that if you're now going to investigati investigate that person's administration, and that's your only job. he's assigned to this case, what i'm saying is, i'm sure -- >> he's been removed. let's talk about andrew weisman's who's still there. >> i'm sure bob mueller when he found some of this stuff out wished he hadn't -- when you're involved in a high profile, and i was involved as u.s. attorney

with people in high profile positions, with republicans and democrats, you have to not only appear to be caesar's wife, you have to be caesar cea's wife. it is there's a difference between saying that bob mueller is a qualified, smart investigator. >> under what premise, you don't think he's investigating -- so you think that democrats can only investigate democrats and republicans republicans? >> no, i'm not saying that. >> wouldn't republicans become the thought pleolice talking abt cleaning house because of the perception problems. >> you know better than this. did you purge your office of people of bias? did you check their party registration?

>> no, i never checked anybody's party registration, but when we were investigating a political figure in new jersey and we did 135 political corruption cases without a defeat. so we had a very good record, so every time when i would assign a prosecutor to those cases, i would ask him, do you know this guy? have you done or said anything that would be contrary to him? if anything came out that you said about him, would it look bad? remember, something, as lawyers, we don't have to be concerned about actual conflict, we have to be concerned about appearance of conflict, and when you have as high a bar as this counsel is getting, if bob mueller and i were free to talk, he would say, i love andrew weisman, strzok may be a good investigator, but i don't need all this tum mumul.

>> one of the placings where we know he was warned that that might be under way was an fbi briefing where everyone sort of briefed on their set of issues, one of the briefs was about just this. and you attended several of those briefings with then candidate trump, mike flynn was in many of them. do you know if you were in this briefing, where we have concerned through several law enforcement officials that donald trump was warned that russian officials would try to infiltrate his campaign? >> i was at two briefings, i don't recall if that subject ever came up in either of the briefings. >> were you ever around donald trump when he was everybody warned about russians? >> no. who are you? go you work for mueller now? >> i'm a voter that thinks if donald trump thinks he's

innocent, it puzzles me that his best friends in the media are trashing a good and honorable man. >> i'm not trashing a good and honorable man. what i'm saying to you, is that in the end, if bob mueller were here and being honest, he would say i don't need this static. and as good as andrew weisman or peter strzok may be, i don't need this. i think he'll be fair about coming to his conclusions and only prove the facts of the investigation. you don't have to be -- it doesn't have to be peter strzok. >> he's gone. >> but it is an indication. nicole, the problem is it's an indication of a failure of the vetting system for the people that were being brought on, you cannot tell me that this would not be a more credible

investigation if, not that it's not credible now, but it would be more credible if you didn't have to deal with this stuff. >> but you cannot tell me that every prosecutor should have to check the party affiliation of every investigator assigned to their team. >> you don't have to know whether they're republicans or democrats. >> there are people in the white house that think those things about the president. >> party affiliation is not the issue. not whether you're a republican or a dratemocrat, because i had republicans investigate republican democrats and i had democrats investigate republicans. the question is, is there anything you have done or said, vis-a-vis these subjects that we know about at the moment, that would make people think that you're not unbiassed, and if there is, you need to tell me that and i need to consider whether or not the investigation would be better served by putting someone else on it. this is what you should be doing. this is what responsible prosecutors should be doing.

>> this is my question three questions ago. you've now answered it three times so i think i struck a nerve. why does judge jeanine come and spin him up about -- >> i have no idea. >> why doesn't he call you when he wants to know about bob mueller, why does he let those nutjobs on tv malign bob mueller. did you tell him that? >> i'm not going to talk to you about what i talk to the president. >> when you see that he called the investigator who's investigating collusion a witch hunt, is that a good tweet or a bad tweet? >> when i talk to the president, i tell him exactly what i think, and i don't say much if at all anything different than i am saying to you. i did this for seven years.

i have seen people come on this air and other air, who pretend to be experts and they have a partisan tint to it. my view is let the facts determine with whhat's going ton here with everybody who's touched by this, i believe bob mueller can do that, i believe chris wrray can run the fbi. >> donald trump obviously doesn't agree with you, he attacked mueller on the white house lawn, saying it's really bad, it's really sad, it sounds like a dr. seuss book, and his attacks on the fbi are ongoing. what i'm saying to you is that people are now -- >> he doesn't listen to you or he doesn't believe you or what is he saying? >> i think people want to react the way they want to react at particular moments to particular bits of news that come out. i would always counsel people who i counsel to take a deep breath and not react to every bit of news that comes out, because one it may be true or

not, and you can't take the news back even if the news you're reacting to is discredited. but everyone is going to conduct themselves in different ways. and none of this matters. what matters, i know because i worked as an investigator for the fbi and a prosecutor at the highest level. these people will not be affected one iota by what the president says or what judge jeanine says or anybody else. they will not be affected at all by it. the thing i love off eof -- lov about being u.s. attorney is i knew what i knew. i asked people, did you know that flynn was going to plead guilty? people on the inside. they said no, i go, see? a good prosecution, the guy or woman in charge of it, the biggest power you have is that only you know what you know. >> they're screaming out question have to sneak in one break, the governor is staying with us wittingly or

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we're still here, somehow. john and eli are back with us too. >> you didn't kick me i am the person that's there at thanksgiving and still watching the football game. >> three senior republicans all closely aligned with donald trump told me that while they had always found it credible that donald trump was too incompetent to have colluded with russia and that he was trying to run the federal government the way he ran his businesses, he could very well have stumbled into obstruction of just, where he could have said to mike flynn, keep that between you and me, mike, or this crack pot story aboard air

force one, that turned out to be a lie about the pretenses of don donald trump jr.'s meeting with mike flynn and would you counsel the white house against sitting down with bob mueller. >> i'm not going to counsel him based on what i know now. and second i would always con sell a client at that level not to talk. >> why, if he's innocent? >> the fbi agents and prosecutors, they go into your house, they say, can i go look in your house because i think you have a gun there. and you say i don't have a gun, and then they go and look for the gun and then say, is that a bag of pot on your kitchen table? >> i keep making the same mistake over and over again. >> did they come for the pot or the gun? >> they came for the gun. >> i think the smart thing, especially for a principal, and

the president is the largest of the principals of the government, if you're ever going to talk, you wait until everything is over and everyone else has talked because you don't want to get put into a position of this, wittingly or unwittingly. >> he may already be there with gly flynn, right? >> we don't know that. one thing i'm confident of is that we have no idea what mike flynn is cooperating on. i can guarantee you this, he took the plea on friday, i guarantee it wasn't wednesday, he's been cooperating for a while. so we don't know. and so i -- when i watch shows like this that i'm on now and others where you have all these people definitively saying, now we know don jr. is going to be charged, now we know jared kushner is being charged. >> no one ever says that on here. >> jeremy bash said that,

because i heard it. i'm sitting in my office in trenton -- >> it's a little trumpy, you know nothing. >> i want to ask you two really basically fundamental questions that nicole was asking in the last block, and i think you know both of the humans i'm asking got pretty well. forget about all the noise and the ancillary questions, bob mueller, someone who you worked with, someone who ran the fbi, someone of honor and integrity or in the bag of the trump forces? >> a person of honor and integrity in all my dealings with him, i believe he's an honest guy and i believe he's going to do an honest, fair and just job. >> we try to make some distinctions in our first block of the show, that trump has gone so far as to not to attack mueller personally, but a lot now in the conference, and

certainly in the echo chamber are attacking mueller all the time. you're saying that mueller is essentially above reproach both personally and professionally. >> yes. >> is that a smart play politically to be going after mueller this way or not? ent >> i don't think so, i think it's a reactive play, i think that anything that happens will be discredited. as nicole pointed out, this could turn out that mueller exonerates the president and you don't want to attack the man who may exonerate you. and so i don't think it's a good idea, because of that, and second who you're attacking. you're attacking a guy who has great credibility and who has done nothing to think he shouldn't have the benefit of the doubt on things. it's not that he's done it perfectly. he's made some mistakes that i'm a little surprised given how good i know bob is but it

doesn't affect the credibility of the investigation yell. a prosecutor is judged by -- he's doing his work efficiently. >> let me ask the second question, because again, it goes to the same argument, the argument that the president is making now, that the fbi may now be in good hands, because the guy who is running it is trump's appointee, but comey, he says there was corruption throughout the department, jim comey is someone you know pretty well too. corrupt? >> i think corrupt is a strong word. i would say that jim made some significant mistakes surrounding the clinton investigation and his conduct from the spring of '16 through november of '16 that affected both donald trump and hillary clinton in very negative

ways that he did not have to be a factor in that election and he made himself a factor in that election. and no fbi agent should do that. >> a lot of people would disagree with you, that things were negative towards her. >> i think you can look at this and say he did both over a period of time, by common rating her and saying no reasonable prosecutor would bring a case for this. to exonerate her from a legal perspective and then he put her back in the tank in october by reopening the investigation and doing a letter, which was clearly in violation of justice department policy. justice department policy told us all of us do nothing within 60 days of an election when someone is on the ballot in that election. and it was well within that 60 days, and the reason he did is that he stuck himself in july, and he had to do it again

because he was afraid people were going to leak on him. >> you prosecuted jared kushner's father, all of the rumblings in d.c. are around his lawyer, abbey lowell hiring a p.r. firm, that was one of the last things he did before edwards was indicted. a lot of people around jared kushner who don't want to see him indicted, worried about him, when you look at him as a prosecutor, do we know about jared kushner, did he set up a back channel with russia and commu communicating on devices, i think he had to -- do we look at him as a prosecutor, and say wow, he's so naive, or do we look at him as someone who may not have had the most ethical counsel in the household. >> whether he deserves it or not, he's getting it.

and the facts will determine that. what i used to tell my prosecutors and myself, you don't know where this investigation is going, dig, get the facts and then judge them. look, the media's not willing to do that because they're not prosecutors, they don't have to be willing to do it and fill content. i'm telling you that he deserves the scrutiny, because he was involved in the transition and involved in meetings that call into question, his role. okay, well, then if he's innocent of that, then that will come out as mueller examines all the facts, and if he's not, that will come out too. deserve, everybody by the way, who was involved in that transition post the election is involved, from, you know, everybody, all the leadership is going to be questioned and i think has been questioned. >> let me ask about two more men, jeff sessions, he's had to

go before committee and lied about contacts with russians. did he forget in your russians. did he seem foregetful in your contacts with him. >> not in my contacts. >> why did he lie. >> there is an assumption you are making. >> he went to congress and said he forgot three times. >> he wasn't forgetful with me. >> but he is under oath but never on the back of the bus. it is a ridiculous answer. >> it's not a ridiculous answer. people act differently after different circumstances and can remember certain things and forget certain things. i'm not going the say because he was never forgetful with me therefore he is a liar in another circumstance. that's a big leap. >> when is there a better time to tell the truth than when you are under oath. >> you have to tell the truth but it doesn't mean if you forget something that's a lie. >> three times. >> nicole, listen n the end that

will be judged too. and that will come out based upon all the circumstances and facts that everybody else is going to testify to. >> mike partnerships really quick. then we have to take a break and we both have to go on other pod cast. mike pence, is he totally out of the lool loop all the time or does he forget, too. >> totally out of the loop? he doesn't appear to mae to me. he appears to be involved in most things he want to be involved in. >> we have to sneak in a break. don't go anywhere. we'll be right back.

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we just might get a pod cast by the end of this hour. eli stoke oels. >> i had one question for you. i have been listening to what you have been take about not carrying the trump administration's water bob mueller is credible man ask. wait to see how the investigations go. does i concern you as a citizen this country to watch so many republicans action growing number of them, disparage bob mutual center does it potentially concern you about long term consequences in terms of degrading the public's opinion of an independent apolitical judiciary. >> ignorance of that kind bothers me no matter what. that's what it is, its a borne out of an ignorance f. there is a text message, that means that bob mueller has no credibility. it's ignorant. i think it's bad. i'm criticizing it as i've done today because i don't agree with that. i come from that position because i've done this work and i know how people operate.

and i worked with bob when he was fbi director and i was u.s. attorney. and he's a credible guy. again, not a perfect guy. and he's going the make mistakes and made some as i pointed out today. to say that now the guy? the tank for somebody or another, i don't buy that. >> part of a coup. >> that deserves to be ignored. >> almost out of time. i want to ask you if your friend stepped in it when he endorsed romney, donald trump, by endorsing a accused child molester. he very much reopened the conversation about the fact that he himself is accused of sexual misconduct by more then a dozen women. you are on the record saying unwanted advancements, but the question is did he make a massive political mistake by endorsing roy moore? >> let's start with this, he lost. i'm sure when looks back he wishes he didn't do it.

>> endorse roy moore? >> i'm sure he wishes he didn't endorse roy moore. >> do you think he has the rightline for himself in terms of me too movement and all of his accusers getting sort of a second moment to restate what they did. >> i can only tell you what he has told me, which is it's not true. now, you know, after that, everyone has to make their own evaluations of whatever evidence comes out and whatever else. he looked me in the eye and told me it's not true. so i believe him. but you know, everyone is going to make their own judgments on this. and everyone is free to make their own judgments on it. i tell you that i vice president seen anything. now, i have been friends for this guy for 15 years, and i had never seen him do the things that he described on that access hollywood tape. i have never seen -- listen, in all my interaction with him up

until the time we both were running for president was soerl. it was not professional. we had no professional interaction. it was social. so i never saw him do anything like that or say anything that would lead me to believe that he would do that. so that's why his denial to me is credible based on my own personal interaction with him. >> what do you -- just to go to those women what do you make of the fact not only did he deny the act sayings after the access hold tape, then threatened to sue them all but didn't sue any of them. what do we take from that? >> i think he became president. if he hadn't, i think he probably would have sued him. knowing him that's what he would have done. i think after he became president they said let's to the get preoccupied with this stuff, you won, let's get to, would. what it shows is a certain level of cooling down of his natural instinct. if you look at donald trump over his career, suing people has never been a problem for him. >> cooling down?

he sends the white house press secretary out to the podium to call these women liars. >> he asked me about sue, nicole. what do i make of him not suing. don't look at me as if your response is responsive to what i said to him. >> a lot of women are -- this moment, sort of benefit of the doubt -- we are not talking about prosecuting him for any of these things but we are talking about benefit of the duty. it seems like everywhere except in the oval office benefit of the doubt goes to the men being accused of sexual harassment. >> what about the white house secretary. >> her job is to communicate what the president beliefs. she is not up there to be an independent actor. you know this. you go up there and say the things that the president believes. you are a spokesperson for the president. >> around you up there to tell the truth from the white house podium. >> yes. >> she doesn't know they are liars. >> if he's telling her that's the truth it is her job to

kplukt that. if she wandoesn't want to, she resign. >> do you think it is a wise political strategy? >> what? >> to call these women liars and alienate a lot of women who are sympathetic. >> i think we need as a party to begin to reassess as we move into 2018 what it is we need to do in terms of our approach. >> we are all out of time. that does it for our hour, i'm micolle wallace, mtp daily starts right now. hi chuck. >> telemy friend the governor of new jersey hello for me. >> i heard you. chuck, the happiest of holidays and a great new year to you my friend. >> absolutely. to you, too. >> go canes. >> they did fine until they choked at the en. >> there you go, just like the cowboys. if it's tuesday, taxes, taxes, yeehaw!