hello to you. i'm richard lui at msnbc headquarters in new york city. thank you for sticking with us this hour. the president is taking a holiday break from washington to close out a very busy year, but his weekend tweets may be making politics a bit more complicated by the minute. plus, new year, new tax code. at mar-a-lago, his private club, president trump reportedly telling guests on hand, you all just got a lot richer. and it is christmas eve, yes. we'll be tracking your weather as we count down to the holiday. and there's going to be snow to talk about. so, it has been anything but a quiet trip to mar-a-lago so far for the president this weekend. first there were "the new york times" headlines of some shocking reported comments made in the oval office about immigrants, claims the white house steadfastly denies.

then there were reports from the "washington post" that andrew mccabe, the fbi's deputy director, would join the other high-profile officials to exit the administration in the year to come. and then the president did what his advisers wanted to avoid, by not holding a tradition year-end news conference, now stirring things up a bit more. the president tweeted last night about mccabe, questioning campaign donations to a political campaign of his wife's and speculating that mccabe had little time left in his tenure. so far, no top law enforcement officer has publicly stood up for mccabe, neither attorney general jeff sessions nor mccabe's boss, fbi director chris rwray, who said this earlier this month when the president said the fbi was in tatters. take a listen. >> there is no finer institution than the fbi and no finer people than the men and women who work there and are its very beating heart. almost 37,000 men and women with

a fierce commitment to protecting the american people and upholding the rule of law, men and women who face the darkest that life has to offer with unyielding integrity and honesty and dedication. >> all right, let's bring in msnbc correspondent garrett haake in west palm beach, florida, covering the president at mar-a-lago. garrett, you've got a lot to talk about. >> reporter: that's right, richard. yeah, we're getting into some of the president's holiday traditions here. that begins with the morning tweets this morning targeting in this case andrew mccabe, the deputy director of the fbi. the afternoon's been a little calmer. the president in the late morning spoke to troops all over the world in a video conference. he went golfing with some of his buddies. we know in short time he's going to have a little chat with norad about the position of santa as he starts his christmas rounds. so, just a little bit of the out of the traditional presidential moments here today, focusing on

those tweets about andrew mccabe. andrew mccabe, if he was not a household name before, he will be soon. that's in part because of his role in the hillary clinton investigation during the campaign. we heard some of the context around that from the president's adviser, marc short, earlier today. let's listen to that sound bite. >> terry mcauliffe, the governor of virginia, is perhaps the clintons' closest political friend. he gave $700,000 contribution to mccabe's wife when she was running for office at the same time that they were launching an investigation into hillary clinton. the american people have a right to know that. >> reporter: so, marc short getting some of this right here. there were pacs that the virginia governor, terry mcauliffe, was involved in that gave money to mccabe's wife and to other democrats running for office. the perception here is that there may be a conflict of interest with mccabe as it comes to hillary clinton. that matters in the context we're in today, more than the end of the 2016 election, because mccabe is also a

corroborating witness of sorts for former fbi director james comey. mccabe has told congressional investigators that, yes, james comey said to him that the president had asked for loyalty from him some time before he was fired. so, if indeed there is an obstruction of justice investigation going on or an obstruction of justice charge or a furthering of that case in the future, mccabe could potentially be a central part of it, so you could see why at the nexus of russia and hillary clinton, mccabe is going to be a central person. now, nbc sources do indicate that mccabe will probably retire early this coming year, but in the meantime, it appears he will be a central focus of the president and his tweets this holiday season. richard? >> msnbc's garrett haake there with the president in florida, close to his mar-a-lago estate. thank you so much, garrett. joining us now from washington, national political reporter for nbc news digital, jonathan allen, and "washington post" political columnist dana milbank, former chief of staff

for senator jeff manchin, chris kofinis and jonathan del percenti. starting with the home team here, what do you make of the president going after mccabe? and garrett gave a great overview of the two sides of potentially why he might be. >> it's obviously a pattern of the president going after people at the fbi and in our national security complex. it's extraordinarily unusual. i think there are a couple things at work. look, like a college basketball coach working the referees on one level, if you complain enough, maybe you'll get the referees to rule more in your favor. on the other hand, you know, he thought he was going to be exonerated by the mueller investigation or by mccabe or by jim baker or any of the other people he's gone after at the fbi. he wouldn't be seeking to discredit them, or at least that would be a very unusual strategy. >> unusual strategy. susan del percio, as we look at

the potential cross-examination that mccabe could offer, we also have james baker, as you know, who's being reassigned at the fbi, the chief counsel there, and he being a second corroborator -- potential corroborating witness of james comey's testimony about that alleged meeting happening there in the white house with james comey. is this going to be an issue of obstruction later on as potentially garrett haake was saying? >> well, we don't know. it very well could be. it sounds like it. we also know that donald trump's m.o. is to go after people he thinks are in his path of what he wants, or potentially in the path of condemning him to a charge. but it's just so disheartening to see the president on christmas eve to go after an fbi officer, a public servant who's put in nearly 30 years to our country, and it's time for donald trump to start worrying about the country first, not himself first. >> it's also james comey who we're talking about, right, in

the middle of this question of the russian connection question, and he is tweeting, and potentially in ways that we are seeing with more specificity and more reaction. this is what he tweets -- "sadly, we are now at a point in our political life when anyone can be attacked for partisan gain. james baker, who is stepping down as fbi general counsel, served our country incredibly well for 25 years and deserves better. he is what we should all want our public servants to be." however, dana milbank, he is also one of the lieutenants, as you know, of james comey, as is andrew mccabe. he would not necessarily not expect him to do this, right? >> no, that's one of the crazy things about this, richard, is there is a new fbi director. it is the custom for that fbi director to have his own deputy, to have his own general counsel. if anything, what's happening here is mccabe can't be replaced in the usual way because it would be seen now as giving in to this bullying by the president, so if anything, that

prolongs his tenure in that number two role. it's an extraordinary thing. that this is happening at all, but it's even more incredible that it's happening on christmas. you know, in britain, the queen has her christmas message preaching unity to the commonwealth, and now here in the united states, our head of state is sending a message of disunity and ill will to the american people. >> chris kofinis, as you were hearing from garrett, he also said the other part of the argument, moving away, again, from the russian connection question, is the issue of the clinton e-mails, and that, of course, being the other part of the nexus. your reaction there to the reporting that garrett was giving us. >> this election apparently will never end. it was somehow decided, you know, last november -- >> you're not the only person saying that, i think, yeah. >> it just won't end. and you have to put the responsibility for that on the president, who's probably the first president in the history

of this country who cannot get over the fact of his own election. that's the part that i would say is kind of stunning. i mean, it's not just -- i mean, if you look at the last year, the attacking of fbi agents, the attacking of members of his own cabinet, he is literally every day getting in his own way and i think just reminds people of an investigation that he probably hopes would go away but is not going to go away every time he tweets and attacks public servants who spent 10, 20, 30, more years dedicated to protecting this country. it doesn't make any political sense. but to be frank, i'm not sure anything makes political sense when it comes to the president. >> i want to get to that sally yates tweet that we just put up quickly here, jonathan, and that is sally yates, as you know, former deputy attorney general, tweeting this within the last 24 hours -- "this on christmas eve? secret service, be on the lookout for three ghosts visiting mar-a-lago tonight." in reacting here to the

president's comments about andrew mccabe over the last 24 hours, and i guess she's intimating he's near the end. >> well, you know, maybe she's hoping that like ebenezer scrooge, the president has some sort of change of heart here as a result of being visited by these ghosts at mar-a-lago. i think that right now there's a lot of frustration with people who have worked in the justice department and at the fbi, regardless of partisan affiliation or what they personally believe. they're watching their institution under attack, and some of them are able to speak, and sally yates is one of them who's able to speak pretty freely because she's not in government right now. >> reaction to what was said on this sunday. the four of you probably watching some of the shows here. and jeff flake, senator flake, who you all know is not necessarily a huge fan of president trump. and here he is speaking on ethnonationalist protection of his own party. listen to this. >> what's the risk if the party

continues in that direction, the bannon direction, the trump direction, that you could lose -- could you lose the senate? could you lose the house? >> most definitely. most definitely. when you start to look at some of the audiences cheering for republicans sometimes, you look out there and you say, those are the spasms of a dying party, when you look at the lack of diversity sometimes. and it depends on where you are, obviously, but by and large, we're appealing to older, white men, and they're just, you know, a limited number of them. and anger and resentment are not a governing philosophy. >> okay, susan del percio, senator flake, chains are off! he's going. he's saying -- and pick any word. >> that's right, he's saying out loud what so many republicans, both elected or -- >> are not saying? >> -- are not saying publicly. and it's the truth. let's face it, the 2012 autopsy the republicans did after their loss wasn't necessarily wrong.

no one just saw donald trump coming in. our party as a republican, we have to be more big-tent oriented, we have to be more accepting. donald trump is narrowing the amount of people who are interested in our party by 5% to 7% just in the last year people are not identifying as republicans. donald trump has less support now than he did when he was elected. and those people are leaving because those are the folks who said he's better than hillary clinton. our party must do a better job at reaching out, which is almost impossible when you have the likes of donald trump or steve bannon out there. >> chris kofinis, you heard the word and reacted to what susan said here. he used the word spasm. and you can go all sorts of different places with this. not necessarily will this be seen as positive. >> well, i mean, i think this is the conundrum the republican party finds itself in. >> but spasm? that's a fairly strong word, right? >> well, it's a very strong word. the notion of a dying party.

i mean, now, what the republicans, at least that support trump will say, but look at us, we're in power. yes, for now. i mean, part of the problem i think you're seeing this, for example, play out in alabama, you're seeing this play out in virginia, and you're seeing the signs of this potentially playing out in the midterm elections. you cannot govern if you alienate. and the president seems to not only alienate anyone who is a moderate read and reasonable in his own party, he's alienating independents, democrats, obviously. so, that is not a good recipe for long-term success. but they've made the calculation that they can win by appealing to a very strong base and basically demobilizing anyone else. it's not working. and in fact, i think it's the exact opposite is happening with democratic energy for a midterm election, which tends to be a lower energy type of election, is probably higher than i've ever seen at this point ever. >> okay. chris kofinis, thank you so much. still to come for all of you, disorder and the courts.

federal courts roll back parts of the trump immigration agenda. we'll talk about the ongoing legal battle with that, plus former chief of staff to michelle obama, tina chen joins us for a conversation as well. as we go to break, images for you just in of the president making calls to kids, talking to them about tracking santa and norad. we're back live from new york on this christmas eve.

i very much feel like we're

living in a thriller, sort of manchurian candidate. >> when he was fired, did you know he had lied to the fbi? >> i knew that he lied to me. >> but these things take time. mueller started in may. >> i think, to say the least, it would be provoking a constitutional crisis. >> when he was in a tough stop, he would go after the press. things could get worse with the investigation. >> it doesn't seem there is an end in sight right now. >> is there already an obstruction of justice case to be made? >> no, i'd wait for the special counsel. >> there hasn't been much discussion about helping the parties and campaigns actually protect themselves. >> we shouldn't participate in the undermining of our institutions that way. >> we continue to cooperate fully and everything that they've asked for, we're anxious for it to be resolved, though. >> welcome back. as the former independent counsel overseeing the lewinsky investigation, kenneth starr knows a thing or two about investigating a president, and he has a solution for robert mueller, writing in the "washington post," starr saying "the cascading revelations of anti-trump bias should give all fair-minded observers pause.

it's time to consider the appointment of a bipartisan select committee, preferably in the senate with highly experienced, recked members chosen by the majority and minority leaders. this is the watergate model." let's bring in from chicago, former assistant special watergate prosecutor jill wine banks, who now serves as a contributor for msnbc and nbc news. jill, what do you think of starr's suggestion here? >> i think there are two different and very valuable ways to approach this. a public hearing is a great idea. in watergate, it worked very well because there was bipartisanship in the congress. today there is no such thing, and i cannot imagine a bipartisan committee being able to work on this. and there is also very complicated and complex financial transactions which really require that you have investigators and prosecutors who are very familiar with that kind of crime.

so i think that mueller's investigation is essential and must be permitted to come to full completion. it took us -- we were also appointed in may. we returned our indictments in march. so, he hasn't even had that long, and he's had four indictments, two pleas. so i think we need to be careful about substituting one for the other. if we could have any bipartisanship, a public hearing would be wonderful. i'd like to see some of these witnesses that have been held in secret, the two who were interviewed in new york this week, seder and rona graf, the president's gatekeeper. i'd like to see them in public. rona graf is the equivalent of rosemary woods, who i know knew a great deal, and i know it was hard to get the truth from her. but to do it in new york with only the staff there and maybe one democrat, that's not a way to get to the truth. >> structurally here, jill, are we at the right place in terms

of trying to understand the russia connection question? is there anything you would tweak or change in the structure we have right now, with the special counsel and four investigations on the hill? >> no. i think that the investigations on the hill serve one purpose, and they aren't looking at crim crimes. they do nothing about crimes. mueller can look at the crimes, but we as americans need to know what went wrong, how the russians were able to hack into state voting systems, how they were able to use twitter and facebook to influence the election, how they were allowed to have phony meetings that they arran arranged. those are things that democracy depends on knowing the answer to, and i think that's an important thing that congress should be looking at, and the republicans seem to be doing anything but trying to find the bottom of that. the president doesn't even really admit that the russians did this disruption of our

system. so, voting is important, and we need to have that happen. but mueller needs to go ahead to look at what crimes were committed. >> jill, i want to bring in jonathan allen, dana mill banks, susan del percio, still with us right now. dana milbank, as you've been watching this story develop, and we gave a couple of those developments as of late, ken starr and his reaction as to what might be a good solution. we're hearing from jill, who is saying it is fine the way it is right now because we don't have bipartisanship on the hill at the moment. what's your reflection on that? >> well, i think that's exactly right, and obviously there's all sorts of investigations going on on the hill, but they have been something of a partisan food fight. there definitely is a role for congress and to have things done in public, and that is, let's talk about the larger issue of russia meddling in our politics. take donald trump out of it. take hillary clinton out of it. it's larger than any of them. we know they're going to come back and do it again. congress could do the country a real service if they could slice

out the issues of whatever crime might have been committed by people affiliated with the trump campaign. you can't stop that investigation. that's under way. but certainly, the whole country would benefit from looking at what is russia up to, and more importantly, how can we stop them. >> susan, is it the republicans' fault? is it really on their shoulders, as we look at the lack of bipartisanship on the hill? >> well, to some -- i think more so in the house nan the senate. in the senate, we've seen much more bipartisanship when it came to the hearings. we see in the house that they're trying to play a little bit more to the political opportunities in their inner cells there. just to echo what jill said, it is critically important that we have an election in this country in 11 months, less than 11 months, that people feel safe and secure in our voter system on election day. there are a lot of problems. and we have some bipartisanship seen on the senate side to get

some legislation through to get further funding to test the voter machines in states, but that is paramount. that is the most important. you talk about the values and character of our country? if we don't feel secure in our elections -- donald trump tried to discredit that once before in 2016, suggesting that things may be rigged. americans must feel confident in 2018 that our elections are secure. >> final word to you, jonathan. >> yeah, i mean, i think that the -- i think the investigations going on on the hill really have the ability to show the american people what's going on, particularly if you have public hearings, when you drag some of these witnesses before the cameras into the spotlight. you really can affect a lot from capitol hill that way. we just saw a judicial nominee knocked out, basically, with the interviewing skills of a republican senator, john kennedy, because he essentially wasn't qualified for the job. so, i think that's actually a valuable exercise, but mueller's

going to keep going, and if it's not him, somebody else will continue to keep going. there is a reasonable, legitimate investigation going on into both the possibility of collusion and the possibility of obstruction of justice. >> jill weinbanks and jonathan allen, thank you both so much. the rest of you are sticking around. i appreciate that. next, unfinished business. lawmakers leave washington without a resolution on the fate of d.r.e.a.m.ers. how much should democrats be willing to compromise now to protect their legal status? afi sure had a lot on my mind. my 30-year marriage... ...my 3-month old business... plus...what if this happened again? i was given warfarin in the hospital, but wondered, was this the best treatment for me? so i made a point to talk to my doctor. he told me about eliquis.

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the time for congress to act is now, right now, today. we should not leave here so that we can celebrate the holidays with our families while nearly 8 800,000 d.r.e.a.m.ers fear being ripped apart from their brothers, their sisters, their mothers, their fathers, and deported to a country they barely know. >> senator elizabeth warren speaking to lawmakers before the holiday recess, urging congress to act on a bill that supports so-called d.r.e.a.m.ers, young immigrants who dime the united states as children illegally. tina chen served as the assistant to former president obama and chief of staff to former first lady michelle

obama, and she joins us right now. and tina, as you look at the debate right now and you look at how democrats have reacted to the issue of d.r.e.a.m.ers, should they have pushed more in the continuing resolution that was passed, and it's good until january 18th? should they have pushed more for these d.r.e.a.m.ers? >> well, they were pushing, and senator warren's comments were pushing. i know that leader pelosi has been pushing. but we don't control congress, so there are limits to what we can do. the republicans, you know, there are republican congressman and senators who say they support d.r.e.a.m.ers, that they're troubled by what will happen to these young people when they are torn from their families and torn really from the only country that they have ever known. and yet, they didn't step up to act. and i would really call upon those republicans, lawmakers who believe this is the wrong thing to do, to step up. >> as you try to get the pulse of the democratic party and democrats in general, with the

idea of the d.r.e.a.m.ers, which we've just talked about, but there's also the wall, might that be something that some democrats will agree on? do the wall, if we get daca? >> the problem with the wall, now that we've just added to the deficit with the tax, is that it's a huge cost for very little gain here. and so, you know, i don't know. as against the real tragedy that's going on with these families, maybe that is something that can get done. i don't really know. what we do know is the cruelty of this administration's policies towards immigrants is just shocking. the other most recent event this past week was, apparently, the reported decision that they're now going to rip children away from their parents at the border? you know, right during the christmas season when the christmas story is all about two young parents and a child and making their way, you know, from bethlehem to egypt, you know, and are we going to rip that child away from its parents?

the cruelty that goes on right now is what is really troubling and really breaks my heart, because i've met so many of these families, and these young people, they're really courageous d.r.e.a.m.ers, kids who have stepped out and combatted the policy at great risk to their own lives. >> i can't talk to you, tina, without talking about this issue, which you and i have talked about in the past, the issue about women and girls. you for the previous administration led that, co-led that. you were the executive director of the white house council on women and girls. you have certainly watched the me too campaign, how it's affected all industries, including the one i work in. and when you see where we are at, do you think washington is doing enough? >> well, we've long tried to do working families policies in the obama administration, things like equal pay and paid leave, and couldn't get anywhere with washington. and the reason those are connected to the me too movement

is that sexual harassment persists in the workplace because we continue after 30 years of talking about it to not have enough women at the leadership roles in so many industries and in the workplace, and they aren't there because of the structural barriers that keep women from staying in their jobs and advancing in their careers. >> what's one idea that you're watching, tina, that might change the tide here even further? is it a piece of legislation, you think, that needs to be introduced to the house and to the senate? >> i have said, you know, we need comprehensive policies on equal pay, paid leave, and that would be important to do. one of the things that many of us who are lawyers have been particularly outraged about is the legal bullying that went on that compounded the harassment, and there are many of us working to change that, too. >> you are very close to the obama family, and we've been watching the president speak more, at least based on the previous cadence, which was almost zero. for instance, he was speaking with prince harry most recently for a radio show. are we going to see more of the

former president out in front as things continue to be heated politically? >> well, i think, you know, he recognizes, and quite frankly, we respected how president bush conducted himself when we were in office, but these are different times, and there are things like the d.r.e.a.m.ers that he often said, if these young people are ever harmed, i'm going to speak out, so you saw him speak out. on the other hand, he recognizes we have one president at a time, and you know, he respects our institutions of government, but he is now a private citizen, and as he said, he is taking on that most important role in our democracy of citizen, and he's going to be responsible in how he goes forward with that. >> it must be disheartening for him and for his wife and as well as for yourself, as they look at daca and then also looking at the individual mandate, two issues that were, shall we say, very much discussed in the administration over a period of time? >> well, they were a key

policies that gave in the case of the individual mandate 20 million people access to health insurance coverage that didn't have it. and now that they've done this piecemeal repeal of the mandate, we're going to wait and see what really happens to health care for americans in this country. but what i am heartened by is the fact that i think the majority of americans now realize going back to a situation where 20 million people in our country don't have health insurance is not something people want to go through. and when they see the effect of this tax bill, i'm hoping people are going to continue to speak out. it's probably one of the reasons why it's such an unpopular bill, despite the fact that supposedly people are going to get more money. >> tina tchen, former assistant to former president obama. thank you for stopping by and have a good holiday. >> you, too, richard. best of the holidays to you. >> thank you. next, a potential setback for the trump administration's refugee ban. a federal judge lifting part of that ban this weekend. what the ruling means on the other side of the break. ntial f, ntial f, but maybe not for people with rheumatoid arthritis. because there are options. like an "unjection™".

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twin court rulings are challenging president trump's immigration policy just within the last two days. yesterday a federal judge in seattle partially lifted the trump administration's ban on refugees entering the u.s. district judge james robe yart ordered the federal government to process certain applications for refugees that have a bona fide relationship to a person or entity in the u.s. and then just the day before, friday, the ninth circuit court of appeals based in san francisco ruled against president trump's travel ban for a third time, saying that trump

exceeded the scope of his authority as president. let's bring in now our panel, msnbc legal analyst danny cevallos, and susan del percio still with us. danny, we've seen the developments over the last two days. tell us about the legal teeth in these rulings and decisions. >> in all, you could argue that none of this really matters until the supreme court finally passes on this issue. the ninth circuit ruling was very significant, even though it doesn't have any effect until scotus hears the case, because it read the language of the statute, 1182, which says in so many words, whenever the president finds that aliens or a class of aliens, their admission would be detrimental, he may essentially suspend or impose any restrictions as he sees fit. and the court looked at that language and said, yes, the

statute does confer substantial authority -- i should say, it delegates authority on the president, but congress ultimately has the primary role in setting immigration policy. it always has. so, the president cannot exercise that power. as broad as it appears to be in the statute, he cannot exercise it in a manner that exceeds or undermines congress' control. in other words, the ninth circuit says that the way the president instituted a ban, it totally eclipsed congress' authority in the area of immigration. >> you know, susan, as we're watching the debate, and danny laid out for us the legal implications in the process moving forward, you've heard the argument coming from your side of the aisle, these are both courts in the west. we're talking about washington, the state, as well as california, in terms of the courts that have made these decisions. your perspective on this being an activist court? >> well, you can certainly try and shop around different courts

if you want to do that. the president did that earlier in the year, and the court ruled against him. there's no doubt that especially this court in san francisco is known as a much more liberal court, but the president has to abide by the justice system, and he cannot undercut it, no matter how much he dislikes it. that's what i'm most concerned about is going after the judicia judiciary. he might not agree with a decision, he can fight it but he shouldn't undermine it. i really hope he doesn't continue on that path. >> danny, as you read into it, the decision on friday was determined by three judges that were appointed by the clinton administration. >> right. >> saturday's was by a george w. bush, robart. so when you look at that activist question, the debate seems to be you're splitting the difference here, and as you were saying, susan, we can split the

difference, but what will be next when it comes to immigration and what will these decisions mean to that as we move into the new year? >> right. well, ultimately, this has to be resolved by the supreme court so they can sort this out in a legal sense. you do see at each step along the way -- we're now at the third version of what trump has said we can call his travel ban, and many says it's still unconstitutional, but you do see in each iteration it becoming less offensive. for example, north korea, venezuela in the latest one, so you don't think of it as just majority muslim countries. but the longer this goes on, remember when the president said he needed this temporary pause while we find out what's going on. well, guess what, it's been almost a year now, so the longer this goes on, it gives lie to the president's claim that this needed to be a temporary pause. it looks like a permanent policy, and that's exactly what the executive is not supposed to be doing without the congress. >> danny, you saw the article that came out from "the new york

times" yesterday. it was also on their front page on the print version today and the language that allegedly was used by president trump in a meeting this summer, in ia lucian to haitians, alluding to huts, dropry commenerogatory co. might this be used to intimate that the president has bias or what have you? >> i think that's a stretch. if you look back, you'll remember, one of the courts took into account tweets that the president had sent out when he was still a candidate, but tweets are essentially statements that we can fairly attribute to the tweeter. these statements about haitians, while sounding very nasty and unpleasant, the white house has disputed them and denied them, so i don't know that they could be admitted as evidence of the president's motive, and i don't know that it would undermine his power under either federal law

or the constitution, particularly under the ina, to regulate immigration. look, the important thing is that if you are a fan of the ninth circuit's decision, the ninth circuit specifically said we'll look at this broad power to the president but we'll look outside it in a holistic approach. that is the exact opposite of the approach of justice gorsuch and other texturalist judges. so when this case gets to the supreme court, you might expect a very different result. >> great to have you brain around, danny cevallos, your brains, too, susan and dana. you both have a good weekend. all three of you, rather. new sanctions against north korea when we come back. that's the topic. defense secretary jim mattis saying that storm clouds are gathering over the korean peninsula. we'll find out if gordon chang agrees with that.

well, thomas, you've got prediabetes. but with more exercise and a change in diet, it can be reversed. but i've tried exercising, and it just makes me hungry for bacon. i love bacon, too. and who really likes to exercise? not me. me neither. nobody! [both laughing] mmm! so we're good? what? oh, you still have prediabetes... big time.

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we have heard these sorts of words coming from north korea and kim jong-un before. anything different here that you're seeing? >> well, as you point out, these are dire sounding words that have been repeated from past s for instance, just a few months ago when north korea was talking about the second set of sanctions this year, in september, it said they were genocidal, that they were brutal and of course the north koreans have been talking about war for quite some time. so i don't think it's new but the problem is that we're hearing so much of this, it's creating its own dynamic that is leading to an extremely tense situation. >> the difference as you've been talking about to us here is north korea has now tested greater nuclear and missile capability than before than we've seen in recent years, these new sanctions, as they choke off fuel supplies, they order north koreans living abroad to return to north korea, these new sanctions are in terms

of an increase in severity, are they great? >> it is a great increase in severity, but the problem is that they are phased in. so for instance, the requirement that countries send back north korea workers, that kicks in in 24 months and the oil sanctions as strict as they are are somewhat unenforceable and the reason is china says a lot of its oil to the north korea through pipelines. we can't monitor to. we know that the chinese have be violating sanctions recently. a north korea freighter under u.n. sanctions not allowed to travel outside of north korea waters, turned on its transponder in a chinese port near shanghai a couple weeks ago so it's clear that the chinese are busting the sanctions. we need much more than what's going on at the u.n. as important as this advance was on friday, we need more. >> we need more. senator ben cardin was from again the ranking member on foreign relations committee saying this is a great

accomplishment and we did, as you looked at the voting when you have china and you have russia also voting alongside the united states, that's an uncommon outcome. do you see that china might be moving forward with the united states in its move to hollow and remove the nuclear capability of north korea? do you see them supporting that in greater degree? >> certainly they're supporting it in a greater degree but the question is are they moving fast enough, are they doing enough? >> right. >> and there's a lot of room for debate. there is a changing perception in beijing right now about north korea, but nonetheless, the default position of the chinese government, the communist party has always been to support the north koreans. and part of the reason is that the chinese military has had a close relationship with the north korean counterpart and they in the chinese military have driven a lot of this north korean policy, so although

foreign policy professionals in beijing understand why china needs to change its policies, the generals and admirals don't and that's the reason why beijing is doing things that look like it's undercut chinese interests. >> what more needs to be done? you said more is needed. >> yeah. i think that president trump has a sound policy, at least he's laid out the framework for it. he just hasn't pursued it with the vigor that is necessary. he has the september 21 executive order which basically tells the world, if you do business with north korea, you're not doing business with the united states. he needs to implement that. also, we've signaled that we're willing to go after chinese banks that have laundered money for the north koreans, that's a good thing. we disconnected a small chinese institute as a money lander at the end of june. we need to go after the big chinese banks that have been handling north korea's cash. we need to stop the flow of technology for north korea's weapons programs that comes from china into north korea. we've not done a very good job

on that. there's a lot more to do and we can do this without the use of force, but unfortunately you're hearing a lot of war talk in the administration this week, last week and that is indeed worrying when you talk about has anything changed? well, not so much on the north korean side but on the american side it's changed. >> you may be alluding to this, marine general warnings to troops and military.com quoting that interview saying, i hope i'm wrong but there's a war coming. this is according to general neller. you're in a fight here, an informational fight and political fight by your presence, in short that's what came from that military.com interview but a spokesman saying that the remarks were not in reference to a specific adversary but to inspire troops along the way. is there a heightened concern here for the united states, and again, there are many -- there's many troops there in the theater of the korean as well as in

japan? >> yeah the concern that i have is not so much the skbrns and you're referring to general neller's comments, what i was thinking of thomas bossert's comments on tuesday. he's the homeland security adviser to the president and he said that the basically the u.s. is sanctioned out. there's not much more we can do without starving the north korean people to death. i think that's wrong but nonetheless, the making of that statement by bossert indicates that essentially the administration thinks it's run out of the peaceful options. if you run out of the peaceful options and you don't think you can deter north korea and some administration officials have said that, then there's only one thing left on the table and that's striking north korea. so if you look at the logical progression of what administration officials are saying it points to a very dark conclusion. >> 15 seconds, which country right now is quite concerned about what's happening in north korea? is it japan? south korea? taiwan? >> japan, south korea, china,

the united states. >> all right. gordon chang, thank you so much, sir. always good to talk to you and you have a good holiday season. >> thank you very much, richard, and the same to you. >> thank you. and that will do it for us this hour of msnbc live. up next, all in with chris hayes. you all have a great holiday.

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