my buddy hosts "andrea mitchell reports." good morning, my friend. right now on "andrea mitchell reports," bully pulpit. president trump takes shots at the fbi's deputy, leaving critics to cry foul. >> he now is intimidating a witness who is a federal employee in the executive branch. he's the president. he's in charge of the executive branch. he's the boss. he's saying this stuff about mr. mccabe that's just flat out false on twitter. it's just one more thing he's doing to try to extract justice in this investigation. one of vladimir putin's most outspoken critics banned from running for a presidential bid for a fourth term. >> they are afraid of me, afraid of us. and chopping block. u.n. ambassador nikki haley announces a quarter of a billion-dollar reduction of u.s.

aid to the united nagttions day after warning other countries not to move its embassy to jerusalem. >> i don't think a vote in the united nations will make my difference on that. but this vote will make a difference on how americans look at the u.n. and on how we look at countries who disrespect us in the u.n. and this vote will be remembered. >> for andrea mitchell, president trump's working vacation down in mar-a-lago continues over personal attacks over the christmas holiday and through the morning. on his feet about health care, congressional races, the economy, and one of his favorite political punching bags, the fbi. msnbc's garrett haake is live in florida with us. garrett, great to have you with us. the president not afraid to tackle a wide range of subjects, and he also isn't afraid to call people out on his twitter feed.

take us through this publicly one-sided battle between the president and the fbi deputy director andrew mccabe. >> reporter: well, it's unprecedented to see the president of the united states go after so many fbi officials by name to the deputy director andrew mccabe and a top fbi lawyer. the latest tweet from the president this morning appears to be an attempt to quote something he saw on fox news this morning. but still, as has been established in the white house briefing room, tweets from the president are statements from the president of the united states, and he talks about the fbi being tainted in that tweet. that's an organization of thousands of men and women who put their lives on the line at this law enforcement agency. setting that aside, the particular focus of the president appears to be, in this case, as has been the case for the last week or so, andrew mccabe, the deputy director of

the fbi, who was involved in both the clinton probe and in the russia investigation, and who, should an obstruction of justice case ever materialize against this president, would almost certainly be a witness. he is someone who can corroborate the story of james comey, saying that the president had asked him for his loyalty. he is seen as a long-time bureau official, a fairly straight shooter. expected to retire probably sometime this spring after he becomes eligible to that. and the president's tweets have been, i think, fairly clear, trying to push him towards the door. >> we know the white house has been very clear that the president's tweets are a matter of official record as well. so it will be interesting to see how this plays out, as you mentioned, referencing the fbi as being tainted. let's switch gears for a moment, gat garrett, and talk about the president, as you and i both noticed when he tweeted in the early morning hours. in that tweet he said, based on the fact that the very unfair and unpopular individual mandate

has been terminated as part of our tax cut bill, which essentially repeals over time obamacare, the democrats and republicans will eventually come together and develop a great new health care plan. let's talk about the reality of that happening in 2018. do you think there have been any fixes to health care? i know there's been mention of the alexander murray plan. is there any possibility of seeing this done in 2018? >> it's certainly possible. mitch mcconnell has promised susan collins that legislation of which she is a co-author will get a shot on the floor at becoming law. it's harder to see if the house is able to pass this. the dynamics for 2018 in congress are going to be a little bit different because the math is different. this is how important a single senate seat is. republicans losing luther strange and democrats gain iing

alabama, it's essentially a wash. so if the senate is going to get anything passed, it has to be done on a bipartisan basis. so in that sense, the president's tweet is correct. if and when anything is going to be done on health care legislatively, it's going to have to be done on a bipartisan basis. but the idea of kicking the original mandate out of obamacare and the rest of obamacare is simply going to fall apart really doesn't pass muster. you still have the medicaid expansion which covers millions and millions of people. you still have 9 million people sign up for obamacare in the shortened enrollment period it had this year. you still have all the original protections to the obamacare plan that are still in place. but to the end that any additional changes would have to pass muster, the president would have to be behind that. >> let me ask you before we go, garrett, about the president's

schedule. he tweeted that it's time to go back to work and time to make america great again, though nothing on his schedule. >> reporter: right. time to get back to work. the white house says he's focused on a couple key issues, but we also know at this moment the president is golfing frwith the senator from georgia and a couple other professional golfers. the senator he's golfing with, david purdue, is a very close ally with him in the senate and an immigration hard-liner. he's about as far from the opposite end of the spectrum as someone like lindsey graham, the president's other golfing partner, as possible. he is in the raise act, which would dramatically reduce immigration into this country. if that's any clue of what's on the president's mind or what they may be talking about on the tee boxes this morning and into the afternoon, that tells us something. but again, as you point out, no official word on any additional meetings he might be taking beyond those happening on his golf course today. >> we're going to leave it to

you, garrett, to read the golf buddy list to determine what the president is thinking about next. garrett haake live for us in florida. thanks for that. joining me now with more on what we've read from the president on the latest mar-a-lago visit, congresswoman and bill crystal. great to have you both with us. bill, the president has been critical of the fbi, as we've seen there with his tweets over the weekend. he's also gone after very specific people, though, throughout the year like james comey, andrew mccabe, now james baker. how much do you think robert mueller's investigation is driving this constant barrage from the president against a critical american law enforcement agency? >> oh, of course it's driving it. the president hates the investigation, he fears it. he wants to curb did as much as he can, so when mueller issues a

report, the public hopes to resist it. maybe he hopes to pardon people, maybe he hopes to fire mueller. i think everyone is cavalier about it. trump is thin-skinned. trump psychologically couldn't c couldn't constrain himself. trump is trying to discredit the fbi who still carries out much of the investigation for the counsel, for robert mueller. he's attacking the whole organization by saying the whole thing is a witch hunt, and i think he fears it and wants to end it as much as he can. >> are you at all, bill, concerned that republicans -- some republicans are telling , e and the president's surrogates are critical of the investigation of these individuals. >> absolutely. they're playing to the president's hands, being allies to the president, something i think would do a lot of damage to this country. the renewed attack began, let's

not forget, after general flynn pled guilty -- i think that was december 1st, less than a month ago, and agreed to cooperate with the counsel. the director who was close to the campaign testified to the special counsel. i mean, i think the president knows that he has something to worry about and is doing his best to fight back. >> congresswoman, the president did get a lot of ammunition by a lot of people's assessments in the form of those messages from peter struck. how much do you think those tacts that were -- they slammed president trump, they even discussed, quote, an insurance policy of trump if trump won the presidency. how much of those private messages that ultimately led to his dismissal from the mueller investigation hurt the public's perception of this investigation and given fuel to the claims by donald trump, that this is a

witch hunt and politically motivated? >> well, i think the issues are quite separate. it's a red herring. in fact, what mueller did on discovery of those e-mail messages was remove the offenders from the investigation and separate himself from that. i think bill crystal is right about this. the president has stepped up his attacks on the fbi and on every single institution you look over the course of the year that is at the center of our governance and democracy, including both chambers of congress, so he's cowed the republican leadership, the press, which has been investigating and reporting, and, of course, the investigation itself. and i think this really demonstrates that the president is worried. he's worried that he and those closest to him are going to come under the microscope a, and the already have, of the mueller investigation. and this attack on the fbi is

really unprecedented. and i think that republican leadership, if they want to demonstrate any loyalty not to the president but to the country and to our institutions, needs to step up and say, stop it. i mean, i think the very fact that he's attacked deputy director mccabe and continues to go after the investigation itself without naming mueller, and at the same time, you know, continues to praise vladimir putin. and i think that at the end of the day, in 2018, we're going to come to a point where we're going to find that the president of the united states is at the heart of what went wrong in the 2016 campaign and what continues to go wrong in this administration. >> and speaking of the 2016 campaign, bill, i want to mention another tweet we read from the president this morning. he's increasingly critical of that dossier compiled by the former british agent christopher steele about russia and the trump campaign. but the tweet also included this, quote, and they use this

crooked hillary pile of garbage as a basis for going after the campaign. as someone who is always trying to look forward, according to the president, it seems that the president himself cannot get through that he continues to bash someone from over 13 months ago every chance he gets. >> i think he's trying to say if he can discredit what might be the basis of the fbi investigation, he thinks it's beneficial to scrap the whole fbi as a whole. the president should welcome this investigation and urge the special counsel to finish it as much as possible, offer to cooperate, offer to testify personally. there is a lot you can do if you know you're innocent to help an investigation move forward. but i think the reason he's bashing the dossier here is it's a way, again, of discrediting the investigation or weakening it going forward. >> congresswoman, if i may ask

you, in 2018 the role hillary clinton may play going forward, what is your recommendation in terms of the kind of role, the former secretary of state, former presidential candidate hillary clinton should play with candidates. she was kept away from, or perhaps by her own decision, stayed away from weighing in on a lot of the key issues of the alabama senate race, but do you think there is a role for her to play next year in making the case against president trump? >> i think just like president obama, secretary clinton has a role to play depending on the place and depending on the race. and i think that that is their judgment. hillary clinton still does remain quite popular within certain segments of the democratic party, as does president obama, and i think that they will figure out where it is that it makes most sense for them to be involved. i mean, the critical question here is, continuing to mobilize democrats and mobilize the

electorate and build on the momentum that we saw in the races in 2017 so that we take back both the house and the senate, and i think both of those things are possible with the help of both president obama and secretary clinton. >> interesting. and bill, let me ask you very quickly about 2018, the possibility of health care being addressed as the president today tweeted out with the help of both democrats and republicans. do you see that likely happening? is there any middle ground, or do you think democrats are just going to sit back and pretty much see what happens with the republicans' lack of popularity and how that may affect them in the midterms. >> they might pass that little patch, the alexander murray bill, but i don't think it will be more than that. i would say on donna's point about the elections, i think the democrats should want to run a forward-looking election. doug jones and ralph northam who won in alabama and virginia were not nationally known faces. they've been around state politics a little bit.

they're better off, i think, recruiting some fresh faces, young people, people who don't have long, political resumes, necessarily, and probably keeping the established figures, whether it's hillary clinton or even barack obama, more in the background. i don't know that they want to litigate previous elections. >> and donna, i'll give you the last word on that as well. can the people sit back and not tweet against something like the trump agenda? >> i think you do a little of both depending on where you are. to bill's point, i think it's entirely true that democrats are recruiting up and down the ladder in governors' races, delegates' races, and of course in congressional races, and i think we have a wide aray of candidates, an enormous opportunity and a lot of momentum. >> great to have both of you with us on this day. thank you. coming up, missed opportunities. were there warning signs more

than a decade ago about russia's plans to meddle in american politics? and could something have been done to stop them? this is "andrea mitchell reports" only on msnbc.

an out spoken critic of vladimir putin will not be allowed to run in next year's presidential election. they ruled to ban his bid because of a criminal conviction in a fraud case. he is calling on moves to ban that. let's call on this bid to boycott. now we've heard from peskov who says a move should be made to see if they are breaking the law. what do you make of this and what do you think this outcome

will do to the election? >> authorities banned access to various web sites calling for that action. novani will not be able to run for president. the only question is how much trouble he'll be able to cause for putin along the way. the kremlin is trying to brush him aside without cracking down so hard that he becomes some sort of symbolic martyr to his supporters, and that's why we're not seeing him behind bars right now. navoni, just a reminder of yours, is a small town lawyer who burst into the political scene back in 2012 when russia was in the midst of these massive anti-government regulations. i was in moscow then. i remember seeing people standing in the freezing cold cheering him on as he led rally after rally. he's very charismatic, a fiery speaker. he did a good job tying, for example, people's low wages to corruption. he didn't just talk a game. he and his team did dig into

corruption in russia. one of his biggest displays was on metrov of his mansion, even a vineyard, in tuscany. he was careful not to go after putin directly, but it was a message the kremlin heard. he's shown himself to be very media savvy. he is able to spark in mosques like petersburg. but he's not ordinarily liked by normal russians across the country. putin is not even attending his own nomination tomorrow. he's widely expected to win by enormous margins regardless of who runs against him. what is a threat to the kremlin, however, is what namoni symbolizes. he's young, he's not afraid to stand up for what he believes in. young russians don't remember the trauma of the collapse of the soviet union. they don't know any leader

except for putin, and through popular culture, through travel, they've been exposed to the rest of the world. they know what it's like. they're not happy with the status quo and navoni could be someone they mitrally around in the future, and that's what the kremlin is worried about. >> and the conviction being used for a reason not to run is what people think is trump discred discrediting him. john is with us. let's talk aboutnovani, if we may. the ban shows putin is scared and afraid to run against him. do you think there is any truth in this, that the putin administration and the kremlin are afraid of someone like aleksi novani? >> i think they are afraid of what he represents. if you look back at those demonstrations that occurred in

2012 when, as our correspondent just said, there were literally thousands of people in the streets, i think they reflected a growing awareness among particularly urban dwellers in places like moscow and st. petersburg, a growing middle class, that their system of governance and elections is not up to world standards. i remember vividly, for example, some russians holding up their ipads and the ipads said, we russians have brains. which was a way of saying, we kind of know what's going on here. so this is -- what putin wants out of this election is an unqualified large election mandate. he doesn't want to risk losing anything on the fringes. and novalmi does have a great deal of popularity. he's got offices in about 80 of russia's districts. >> is the popularity of novalmi because he is protesting against a system inside the government,

or is he demonstrating he's not afraid to go after very powerful russian figures like dimetr dimetri midyev or putin? >> i was able to meet with people who were very candid with lots of examples of corruption. when you hear about it, and you may doubt that it actually exists, when you talk to russians who live there, businesspeople, people who run non-governmental organizations, it's very, very pervasive. and remember, of course, putin really has near total control of the media. the media there exceeds practically anything we know in the west in terms of its

syncophancy to putin. >> i want to go to the "washington post" that is reporting the u.s. underestimated the cyberthreats against the u.s., but the wake-up call came when the russians annexed crimea and backed separatists in eastern ukraine. an intercepted russian military intelligence report dated february 2014 documented how moscow created fake personas to spread disinformation on the social media to butt res its broader military campaign. so was there meddling in our u.s. elections going back to prior to 2014? >> i think prior to 2014 we were lulled into a kind of complacency for a number of reasons. chief among them, in the 1990s,

russia was kind of flat on its back. we tried to actually help it. and we had, i would say, close to friendly relations with the regime at that time under boris yeltsin. we weren't quite prepared as a government with what putin brought in in 1999. the united states also tends to feel overconfident in the world, particularly when we looked at how bad off russia was then. in truth you can trace these techniques back to the 1980s when russians were, in that period, in the soviet period, were forging embassy cables and white house documents to suggest all sorts of things, that the united states was involved in the attempted assassination of the pope, for example. so there was, prior to 2014, a lot of evidence that russians knew how to do this and they do this sort of thing. they have new tools today, but i think that "post" article is quite right in saying it was the

incursion into crimea, sort of a mixture of cyber and special operations and propaganda and psychological warfare and little green men that really showed the russians for the first time vividly. >> do you think this administration, the trump administration, understands that and are showing that threat seriously as we go into 2018 and possibly 2020? >> no, i do not. i think there are some nation efforts underway, but frankly, there are a lot of things we could be doing. the europeans are way ahead of us in understanding this problem and in doing something about it. lots of examples. the eu, for example, has a committee that's exposed about 2,000 fake russian documents. we have nothing like that going on here. so in terms of our administration, frankly, until the president himself clearly articulates that this cannot go on, says so to the russians in a

very direct way, and directs our government to do everything it can to combat this, i don't think we're going to pursue this with the energy and the vigor it requires before 2018. it really requires a presidential lightning bolt to mobilize everyone, and we don't see that coming. >> i was going to say, it's hard to acknowledge that with president putin's involvement in this and now going to the fbi which leads counterterrorism efforts in this country. thanks for joining us this afternoon. >> thanks, eiman. nikki haley says slash and burn, days after the united nations was taken advantage of. and a pipe dream. north korea says they won't give up their nuclear weapons. why they're accusing the united

states of an act of war.

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welcome back, everyone. a major message from nikki haley, the u.n. ambassador. the u.s. says they have cut the budget to impact the united nations. but she said she would not let the generosity of the american

people be taken advantage of. joining me now from new york is the former deputy assistant to ukraine and eura sirkssia. she is now a foreign political contributor. we all know that the united nations is a bloated democracy. when you juxtapose this with the ambassador's threats, as some people have called them, ahead of the vote, saying, we're taking names, we're going to be watching very closely, the president authorized me to do so, it's hard not to look at this and say this is a politically motivated decision to slash the budget for countries not standing with the united states. >> so that's what it looks like, iman, but i would say it may not be intentional. i remember ambassador haley talking about this around the time our president was going to

the generjengeneral assembly in september to make a speech, and i remember her making a pitch defending the united states saying, this is an institution america helped to create, by the way, we're streamlining things, we're cutting the budget, we're looking for efficiency. i believe this started out as her way of showing the president that there was value in the u.n. and that we're also going to make sure, of course, that they're not going to waste our money. but as you said, these came right after those threats which were really kind of puzzling, head scratching, in the context of the actual vote that they were taking, which was an expression of the view of the u.n. general assembly, of the security council, rather, but did not cause anything to change on the ground. so it was a nonbinding vote but it came with all these threats. we were actually lucky, then, that subsequently, where we really cared, the u.n. went with us. the security council voted unanimously with us. >> so to that point, on one hand

the united states benefits from a strong united nations, as you just mentioned. when the united states needs tougher sanctions on a place like north korea when they want to go invade iraq and use the intelligence that they did to present to the united nations, they certainly go to that body to try to get legitimacy. so what's the strategy to try to weaken the u.n. and using the kind of language that the ambassador used there in criticizing those countries? >> i think it's a really problematic strategy. i think trying to take the fat out of the budget, that's great. i commend ambassador haley for doing that. really, i have to take it at face value. but the problem i have with it i know that the president and people in his inner circle, they have come out very skeptical about international institutions, the united nations, nato, all these institutions we set up at the end of world war ii.

why did we set them up? because we wanted to make sure we wouldn't have radical nationalism or protectionism, again, that would rise up so strongly that they would create potential war. there was asia as well in the second world war. it's really about preventing global war, and i worry a little bit about the attacks we've been making on the international institutions and the fact that we haven't been standing up against russia in particular, which has also been attacking the international order. >> let's switch gears and talk about russia and its relationship with north korea, the use u.s. obviously pushing u.n. sanctions revelation. at the same time russia emerging as a possible mediator between the united states and north korea. does that weaken our position here in the u.s. when we see our country that is somewhat of an adversary now assuming the negotiating position between us and north korea? >> absolutely. it's not a welcome development. it smells a lot like when the

russians said in the fall of 2015 that they were going to get more actively involved in the civil war in syria. that wasn't helpful. they already were a bad actor. >> what do you think is their motivation for doing this? >> in putin, it's always about maintaining power. he's up for election in march. he's demonstrating to the people that he's a strong leader, that he's important, that he's relevant. his second objective is demonstrating that russia is great again to his people, but also to the international community. this is really important to him. and then finally, associated with both of those goals, is his desire to push back on the idea that the international community can go in and help regime change. so he's also probably nervous about any regime change in north korea, which is a concern that china shares. >> much closer to the region. >> we've made it clear that's not on the table for the united states or our allies, we just want north korea to cease having a nuclear program, to cease being a threat to us and our allies, which, by the way, they're a conventional threat as

well, and basically putin comes in and says, well, i'm going to side kind of more with china on this because china is also sometimes helpful, but not as helpful as they should be. >> very quickly on the issue of ukraine, we know this administration as initialized the sale and transfer of force to the military government there. how do you think it will change things on the battlefield? something the obama administration didn't do, but certainly something the trump administration is doing, appearing anti-russian, if you will. >> there are a couple questions you asked in there. first of all, it's not anti-russian, it's anti-kremlin foreign policy. we love the russian people and we actually want them to have a chance at a better life, so have the russian government change its own policies internationally for starters would be a good thing. it's not going to change anything on the battlefield except maybe for the fighting to

diminish. because putin -- we haven't noticed it very much in the states, but the russians have ratcheted up the military pressure. why? because things are going relatively well in ukraine and more or less the government is stable there. economically things are okay. and the u.s. has a very aggressive, diplomatic effort going on right now to try to solve the problem, the war, between russia and the ukraine. if these weapons help, the way they will help, they're defensive weapons. the weapons that i think you're referring to, the most interesting ones, are the javelins. they're anti-tank weapons. it makes the russians think before getting in their tanks and launching a new initiative on campaign. >> it will be interesting to see if that does change the dynamics. as 2017 comes to a close,

all eyes are looking ahead to the 2018 races. what the democrats are going to try to turn their congressional wave into a tsunami. we'll see if that happens. only on msnbc.

welcome back, everyone. president trump and congressional lawmakers are a

week away from a new year full of legislative opportunities. but the midterm elections looming in november and a string of policy differences within both parties' interests could derail a number of plans in 2018. betty woodruff and msnbc contributor jonathan capehart and independent writer at the "washington post." great to have you guys with us this afternoon. jonathan, let me start with you, if i can. the big picture here, usually presidents, as we've seen over the last two presidents, they see their party has a rough go of it in the midterm. we saw that with bill clinton, we saw in back in 2010. in fact, chuck schumer was in washington to witness the impact of both of those results. what does that tell him about what his party, what the democratic party should do going into 2018? is it more of a look-forward approach or more of a sit back

and let the republicans mess this up? >> it's both. voter turnout in the midterm elections between democrats and republicans is a lot less than it is in elections. it is a whole lot less during midterm elections. because president trump, as we've seen during all these special elections and then the gubernatorial elections in new jersey and virginia in october, and the special election in alabama where doug jones beat roy moore in deep red alabama, i think the democrats in a sense have the win at their backs in terms of voter enthusiasm. but i do think they have to present a forward-looking message that shows voters in states that the alternative they have to republican rule and president trump is something that folks would give democrats an opportunity to try to pursue.

>> betsy, let me ask you about something the president tweeted today, which is the issue of health care, trying to move that to center stage. i know mitch mcconnell has tried to signal he wants to move past health care, but there is legislation in the senate that will try to stabilize those markets, which has been a big challenge over this issue for the past year. and it seems like both president trump and speaker ryan, they're actually open to trying to take one more shot at killing obamacare for good, even though they failed earlier this year. do you think that leader mcconnell is right to try and keep health care off of voters' minds before going into november? do you think the voting public is sick and tired of these failed attempts to repeal obamacare? >> that's a good question. it's a really difficult, dicey situation for republicans because the republican party on capitol hill is essentially two different parties. you have republicans, especially in the house but also in the senate, who have very safe, consistently red constituencies,

red districts, red states who have been campaigning for years and years on the promise of repealing the affordable care act. then a big part of the reason republicans control the house and they've grown their house majority over the past few midterm cycles are because of members who are in very close districts, maybe d plus 1 districts, districts that are very close, and that makes them hesitant about trying to go out on a limb politically. additionally, though, mcconnell and the white house face a lot of pressure from their base when it comes to potentially trying to stabilize insurance markets. based on my reporting, conversations that i've had, part of the reason that one of those proposed bipartisan fixes that would have tried to stabilize insurance markets, the alexander murray compromise, part of the reason that didn't get passed already when congress was passing a host of last microfiber minute bills before the end of this congressional year is because pro-life

advocates lobbied the white house hard against it. they said alexander murray really didn't contain anti-abortion language they insisted on, and as i understand it, that's a big part of why the insurance markets didn't get stabilized. the politics here of health care could not be messier. >> jonathan, let me ask you about another issue that's come up, and that is the president is trying to bring up again infrastructure. if you look at it on the surface, infrastructure something a lot of people would get behind, but it means big spending. there are people who are fiscally conservative like speaker paul ryan. do you think we're going to see the president go after speaker ryan if he tries to block the issue of infrastructure on the big spending ticket items like the way he went off mcconnell over health care? >> look, i think that's one of the reasons why speaker ryan and senate majority. >> so that they can get, quote, on the same page as it's

reported in the "wall street journal." i think that's what it's all about, to make sure they're all singing in the same hymnal. what we've seen in the trump administration is what's decided on in one meeting can be redone on a presidential peak. the president and the administration has bitten into an apple at least two other times. we had national infrastructure month, i believe that was october, which was completely forgotten after, what, half a day. if the administration is going to make any headway on infrastructure, they're going to have to have a sustained focus. >> and really quickly, betsy, isn't the infrastructure where the democrats go all in and show they're willing to work with a republican-controlled congress. >> i think it's highly unlikely

that democrats hug trump. i think it's double the cases that democrats they are poised e house. for congressional democrats flipping the house is their number one priority and unlikely they'll do any favors or extend any olive branches to donald trump's administration that could potentially make that harder for them. >> all right, betsy woodruff, and jonathan capehart, thanks for joining us. >> sure. coming up, winter worryland. after many dreamed of a white christmas, thousands are waking up to harrowing conditions on one of the buzziest travel days of the year.

>> welcome back everyone. millions of americans heading home today and facing more intense winter weather. crews at major airports are working to make conditions safer for passengers including boston logan airport where a jetblue plane spun off the runway last night shortly after landing. david price from wnbc joins us for the very latest forecast. what should we expect more of here especially as we go into the new year's eve weekend? >> keep in mind a white christmas is pretty to look at but as you try to travel in it, it's a different story. let's get to the map and zoom in on the eastern third of the country, because other than that, we've got some showers in the gulf states. beautiful weather in the southeast. sunny and mild in the west and

oh it's really the northern plains states, great lakes and new england that are the real trouble spots right now. let's talk about the lake-effect snow that's beginning to blow all the way through, just to the north and east of cleveland, in through erie and buffalo and just around the syracuse area. let's go to some video right now out of erie, pennsylvania. this is in the last 24 hours. i started as a weatherman in erie and dylan dreyer started in erie and if you know that area you know lake-effect. that's what they're seeing right now and will continue to see. back to the maps. this is going to last through the midweek. high, limited areas of heavy acume wags. ashtabula, ohio, jamestown, new york, oswego and watertown it will continue. all of that air comes across the lakes and just dumps, dumps that moisture right back right along the shoreline.

so bands of heavy persistent snow. snowfall rates up to two inches an hour. that's what we're going to be dealing with, as we continue through over the next 24 hours or so. through thursday, snowfall totals could be over four feet in some of these locations. bitter cold, of course, the second complicating factor for sections of the great lakes and northeast. that's a quick look at the weather picture. >> i was hoping the millions making those journeys across the country have a safety trip. much more ahead, you're watching "andrea mitchell reports" only on msnbc.

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all right that does it for me this hour we ddition of "andrea mitchell reports." craig melvin is up next here on msnbc. >> you need a nap. >> i do, five hours. >> you have been on tv since i woke up. good afternoon to you, craig melvin here at msnbc headquarters in new york. it's personal. the. 's twitter feed this holiday season taking aim at the fbi but not just attacking the bureau, he's calling out one career public servant by name. also, shrouded in secrecy, a new review of president trump's cabinet shows information about what they're doing and with whom they are meeting, it's hard to come by. and threat eliminated how vladimir putin's road to re-election just got a whole lot smoother, but we start with president trump's not so quiet vacation twitter feed lighting up like a christmas tree with a series of comments on