influence, steph. >> we should remember, the book wasn't just steve bannon. he went after others. over 200 interviews conducted. a lot might not be true in the book, but boy, even if some of it is, it's a wow. we have to wrap this up. that ends this hour of "velshi & ruhle." my partner gets back next week. now i hand it back to my colleague andrea mitchell on "andrea mitchell reports." right now, cease and desist. the president's lawyers planning to take steve bannon in a tell-all book to court in a furious siege against the president and his family. bannon talks on his breitbart radio show. >> there is no one we think higher of than president trump and the agenda, so let's not let the left wing media stir that up. don't worry about us and the maga agenda.

we're tight on this agenda as we've ever been. dirty laundry. how will bannon's solac ir krrs allegations affect the party? >> the president hasn't changed, the administration hasn't changed. we're going to continue to do a lot more this year as we move into the beginning of 2018. and deep state. ellen degeneres' response to eric trump claiming she is part of the deep state. >> eric, i am honored that you think i'm powerful enough to be part of a government conspiracy. i'm sorry to disappoint you. i am not part of the deep state. even if i wanted to, i don't have that kind of time. i have my gay meetings on

monday, then a gay brunch on wednesday, and porsha and i are desperately trying to have a baby. and good day, everyone. i'm andrea mitchell in washington. a snowy washington today where president trump just made his first on-camera comments at the white house on steve bannon, clearly the gatekeeper for author michael wolff's insider takedown of the white house. we've got nbc white house correspondent kristen welker and nbc political reporter carol lee joining us. first, kristen, let's play a little bit of president trump's reaction when asked about steve bannon. >> any words about steve bannon? >> i don't know. he called me a great man last night, so he obviously changed his tune pretty quick. thank you all very much. i don't talk to him. i don't talk to him. that's just a misnomer. >> so kristen welker, a busy day at the white house with the

overnight reactions from the lawyers first going after steve bannon, telling him to cease and desist and that they were going to file suit. we should point out they're also taking on michael wolff and the publisher as well with these threats, but this isn't the first time the president has made threats of legal action that haven't actually been followed up. >> reporter: that's absolutely right, andrea. still, it does underscore the fact this war is escalating between president trump and steve bannon. you could see his frustration there in his remarks when he said he obviously changed his tune pretty quickly, tried to put focus on the fact he's no longer in touch with steve bannon. that may be the case right now, but it is worth noting that the two have been in contact since steve bannon left the white house. to that potential threat of illegal action, andrea, that you mentioned, president trump's lawyers overnight sending a cease and desist letter to steve bannon, then this morning sending a cease and desist letter to the author and

publisher, writing, we are investigating numerous false and baseless statements you have made about mr. trump in your upcoming book titled "fire and fury." the white house has been pushing back against this vigorously, but the officials i've been speaking to pointing to the president's statements being the strongest remarks. he yesterday said steve bannon has lost his mind since leaving the white house and distanced himself from steve bannon saying, essentially, he didn't have is the type of impact here at the white house that was thought. but to the broader political point that you raise, andrea, and i really think that is what's worth tracking as we move forward here. look, steve bannon is someone who has been seen as a touchstone to the president's base. he's someone who has continued to be an adviser to this president. and so what might this mean moving forward, heading into the midterms? you heard sarah huckabee sanders say, look, the president's relationship with his base is strong, the base is strong in and of itself, and yet there is no doubt that steve bannon

continues to wage this war against the establishment. we'll have to see how it plays out. >> and carol lee, the white house has got to be completely rattled by this, all of these disclosures, it's hard to know what is actually fact and what isn't, a lot in quotations. there is going to be more to come from michael wolff as he explains the process that he used. but it's clear bannon gave him access to the president. he did have one conversation that we know of, perhaps more, with the president himself, and he was seen in the west wing. he had a lot of access during the first 200 days. >> reporter: he certainly did. and look, this is something where you've seen the white house really try to push back on certain elements of the book, but the problem that they're facing is that broadly -- and we should say nbc has not confirmed a number of stories in this book, but broadly it fits with this narrative we saw in the first year of the trump

administration, which was a lot of infighting and a lot of chaos and a lot of disorganization. and even if you drill down on some of the things that are said about the president in terms of he's distracted, he doesn't like to be briefed at length, he gets bored in meetings with foreign leaders. these are things that be corroborated in ideas broadly in other reports. so while the white house is really angry about this and really pushing back on certain pieces of it, there are challenges that they're fighting against a narrative that has already taken hold in terms of how the president has conducted his presidency in his first year. >> and, quickly, kristen welker, and we want to let you get in from outside there in the cold. the personal cell phone use being banned, that seems to be a direct reaction to this. maybe it was something pending, but the fact they're now telling staff and guests they can't use their personal cell phones. they're claiming it's security, but they haven't seemed to be terribly worried, for instance,

about the president's tweeting on his phone or other possible security risks with cell phones. >> reporter: you're absolutely right, andrea, the timing is significant here. look, sarah huckabee sanders releasing a statement saying this move is due to security. but there is no doubt about the fact that it also represents the concern here behind the scenes about leaks and about the fact that perhaps some off-the-record statements may be used on the record. of course, that's what they're charging, alleging has happened in some cases with this book. and this has been something that the administration has been struggling with, i think, since its early days. i remember sean spicer tried to put a lockdown on personal cell phone use. now they're caudifying that and making sure it really goes into effect, andrea. adam schiff is the top democrat on the house intelligence committee and joins me now. good to see you. thanks for coming over. first of all, let's talk about michael wolff's book.

there are a number of issues that we know robert mueller is looking into. and bannon suggests, for instance, that even holding that meeting in trump tower with the russians is treasonous. he doesn't have any legal standing to say that, but how does that, if at all, affect the investigation? >> well, i certainly concur with the idea that bannon expresses, reportedly, in the book that this should have been reported to the fbi. this is a meeting the fbi should have been made aware of. the russians are trying to intervene in an election campaign. they didn't do that. whether that is criminal or not is something bob mueller will ultimately determine and we're investigating all the facts around that meeting and have a lot more work to do. but i certainly agree with the kind of damning characterization of it. i don't know that i would call it treason, but certainly it was unpatriotic. may very well have been part of a conspiracy. we're still trying to determine

whether there were meetings that went before that and after it. >> and what about mark carollo, someone you probably know of who was a spokesman for the legal team but in the past had actually worked with the justice department and prosecutors, being quoted as saying in the book what was referred to as quitting because he felt that the shaping of that explanation of the russia meeting at trump tower from the president on down on that air force i flight back from germany when it was first revealed, that that was, on its face, obstruction. >> i think the obstruction of justice is a real issue that bears investigation by us and by bob mueller. we are trying to get to the bottom of what took place on that plane as well. i asked donald trump jr. about the conversation he had with his father after that meeting became public, and he refused to

answer, invoking a nonexistent attorney-client privilege between his father. it remains to be seen whether we can get the majority support to compel him to come back and answer those questions as we need to to get to the bottom of this. >> one of the quotes from bannon, and we have to drill down with michael wolff in the coming days and on "meet the press" on sunday. when he put something in quotes, was he taping on his phone? how did he know how many of these quotes are legitimate quotes? there is some question of methodology here. >> we have seen bannon refuse those quotes. he has spoken about it. he said anything attributed to him was not said by him, so presumably maybe there is a recording. >> good point. and one of the quotes from bannon in the book is, you realize where this is going. this is all about money laundering. mueller chose weissman -- that's one of the staff people there -- first and he is a money

laundering guy that goes through deutsche bank and all the kushner stuff, expletive, deleted. the kushner stuff is greasey. they're going to go right through that. does this say where the fbi was going from the start? >> i can't say where the fbi is investigating. i can say i think it is a very important issue to be investigated. the allegations are credible enough and the damage to the country would be significant if this is something the russians could hold over the head of the president of the united states. so i do think it needs to be investigated. you do see concerted efforts by the president and his allies to limit what bob mueller can look at. the manafort investigation should be seen in that context to attack mueller, plainly they don't want mueller looking into money laundering, but it would be negligent for him not to. >> before i let you go, you

refer to the manafort litigation. it's a challenge to try to limit the scope of mueller's inquiry. there are legal questions as to whether he even went to the right court, whether he has standing. your take on that? >> the litigation isn't going to go anywhere, and it's not meant to go anywhere. it's meant to send a message for possible pushback by the president and his allies. this may, more than anything else, manafort's bid to get a pardon. i think we need to look at any potential pardon as an act of obstruction of justice, to get back to that issue. some people claim the president's powers is absolute. he doesn't have the power constitutionally to obstruct justice. if he uses a pardon to do so, that is a deep problem and would provoke a constitutional crisis. >> i want to ask you about this meeting last night where rod rosenstein and chris wray went to see paul ryan, the speaker, to resolve a dispute over

whether devin munez, a chairman on your committee, would have access to the prosecutors' work. he's supposed to be recused, but as you have pointed out, there have been lots of disputes as to what devin munez has been doing as far as wielding power over subpoenas. do you know how that was resolved and how that came down? >> i don't know. i know there was an agreement. we got word that they reached an agreement on documents. the department was supposed to fully brief the minority -- >> you haven't been told yet. >> we have not. th they have made that request to our committee. >> can't you ask the speaker of the house, which was supposed to be elected by all of you, and find out some visibility on this, find out what happened? >> the appeal we're making to the speaker is let the investigation run its course.

>> do you think he's trying to block it? >> ultimately if the republicans bring to the house an investigation, when there are dozens and dozens of witnesses that need to be interviewed, the speaker will bear the responsibility. >> what concerns might you have if devin munez gets access to everything the prosecutor is doing given the fact he made that midnight trip to the white house in months past and did the unmasking at the white house? >> the white house trip, the whole unmasking investigation which was a dead end and was always going to be a he hadead it's all designed to go to the russian office. but it is in the service of the white house. that's no way to conduct an investigation. it's also going to do lasting damage to the fbi and the department of justice. >> now that he's been cleared of this ethics problem relating to

the prior fear in the investigation, is munez in charge and going to be laid aside? >> he never stopped being the decision maker, even when he said he was stepping aside or recusing himself, continued to be made privately, secretly by the chairman. that has not been helpful to the investigation but it's been the reality. >> do you think it's at a dead end? >> no. i certainly hope not. because we have a lot more work to do. but it will depend on whether the majority is serious about its commitment to following the facts wherever they lead. there are very important documents that will shed light, for example, on the trump tower meeting. there are very important witnesses that go to the issue of contacts between the russians and the trump campaign. the question is will the majority let us interview them? >> adam schiff, to be continued. we'll have to leave it there. thank you so much. >> thank you. coming up, the fallout.

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author michael wolff clearly had unprecedented access to the white house. with president trump putting out the welcome mat giving him at least one, if not more, interviews. he has a history of

backstabbing, family feuds, killer instincts of proportional dimensions, if not reality tv. joining us now, the spokesman for vice president mike pence. people we interview and talk to say that he had extraordinary access, that he was seen around the west wing, seen sitting in the lobby there. clearly steve bannon welcomed him, but also he has now said this statement in the hollywood reporter. after the election i proposed to him -- the president -- that i would come to the white house and report an inside story for later publication, as a fly on the wall. which he seemed to misconstrue as a request for a job. no, i said. i'd like to just watch and write a book. a book? he responded, losing interest. trump seemed to say, knock yourself out. >> these were meetings that were authorized by steve bannon, so

at this point we have to look at how much of this was driven by steve bannon and how much was driven through the white house's communication channels. >> i'm sure it wasn't driven through the white house's communication channels, except there seemed to be a green light. people seemed to know, as one does in any small, tight-knit group like this, that it was okay because it was okay with the boss. he seemed to have the president's approval to be there. >> i can't speak to that. obviously, i can tell you a lot of times -- and you get this in washington in general, that there is an explicit understanding that the boss, whomever that boss might be, supports this. >> it was widely known that the president has a very short attention span, has particular tastes in terms of his food, you know, always worried about the safety. this has a little more detail about that where he talks about being afraid of being poisoned, not wanting the white house

staff to even touch his toothbrush, leaving his shirts on the floor, that kind of thing. in addition to all those kinds of sort of juicey details, it talks about such a toxic atm atmosphere with bannon going after his sons, his daughters, his son-in-law, and the white house staff in complete disarray on issues of real substance. >> well, you have -- and obviously as this has come out in these excerpts, and i'm not sure if it's true or not, this book does take some tacks against the president's family, which i think is why you saw the president respond like he did yesterday. we do need to question some of this, and i don't know, and i can't tell you which we should and which we shouldn't -- >> i should say nbc news has not been able to confirm these stories, these kwo tagquotatione anecdotes. >> the columbia journal

interview call intervi intervi intervi interview -- journalism review called this disgusting. i'm sure there are pieces in there that people will digest. maybe it belongs in the fiction section or the national enquirer whether it's actually fact-based. >> he certainly had a good relationship with president trump and steve bannon up till now. what about the cell phone ban? >> i will tell you, even when i was in, and i haven't been in the administration for a few months now, but this was widely discussed even when i was in last summer, last spring. >> it's triggered now. >> they have been talking about this for quite some time.

you can go back and how many reports have there been about people questioning whether the staff was using text messages or whether they were using other forms of communication, not their official forms. so this had long been discussed, plus there are security issues in terms of whether those phones can be tapped into and reviewed. >> issues have been raised about the president's phone at mira lau mirror -- mira lago and other places. >> thank you. michael wolff will be live tomorrow and sunday on "meet the press." paul manafort suing the special counsel who indicted him in connection with the russian investigation. a lot of questions there. we'll be right back.

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in a "new york times" op-ed column, the co-founders of fusion gps, that's the firm behind the controversial steele dossier, are releasing parts of

their 20 hours of closed testimony to three committees. they're demanding the committees release the full transcripts. chairman chuck grassley recently told iowa voters he would do that, but now he's resisting. and here we have a former prosecutor and attorney general in connecticut. thank you very much. how important is it to get the full context of this firm's connection to the dossier out there so these selective leaks don't continue? >> the american people really deserve to see the full stra transcript of this interview, but also the don jr. interviews, all the interviews conducted by the judiciary committee, because they need to understand the fullscope and magnitude of russian interference in our election, uncontroverted that

there was interference. these transcripts should be completely disclosed and every one of those witnesses should be called to testify under oath in public. the american people need and deserve it. >> there is some suggestion from grassley about open hearings, at least for these people from fusion gps. >> what is really most important that i've seen in reviewing these interviews are the questions that are raised by the donald trump interview. he refused to answer -- >> donald trump jr., obviously? >> donald trump jr. refused to answer some of the key questions put to him. so if there is going to be a hearing with glen simpson or anyone from fusion gps, even more important to hear from donald trump jr., jared kushner about the june 9 meeting that involved the russian foreign agents and the offer of dirt on hillary clinton. these kinds of facts the american people need and deserve to know. >> do you have any signal at all from the majority, the republican majority, that they're going to let this

happen? >> i have great respect for chairman grassley. he has been a straight shooter for most of the time i've worked with him, and i still hope that we will have a bipartisan approach, which we really need, because the fusion gps part of this inquiry is really a distraction from the massive russian interference and the potential collusion by the trump campaign with the russians, a distraction that obviously a number of my republican colleagues are trying to increase so as to potentially shut down or stymie the fbi and special counsel investigation, now more so than ever. there is a real threat as the investigation comes close to the oval office that the republicans will try to either fire mueller or shut down the investigation. that's why we need the legislation that i've proposed. >> speaking of efforts to shut down the mueller investigation,

what about the manafort lawsuit trying to scale back the scope of the mueller investigation? >> that lawsuit is really beyond frivolous. it's the kind of throwaway line that a defense counsel might use in a prosecution. it's the standard tactic of attacking the prosecution. >> they haven't gone to dismiss the charges. they haven't made motions to dismiss the charges. >> that's where this kind of defense is normally raised. this is, really, a political stunt, not a legal move. >> you and chris murphy, your connecticut colleague, just came back from puerto rico. you spoke on the floor today. what is your fact-finding on the ground there? it's now more than 100 days since this hurricane on u.s. territory. >> andrea, the response has been shamefully inadequate from the federal government. puerto rico continues to be in a humanitarian economic crisis. the resolve of the governor,

governor rosoyo, and his people have been very impressive as it the work of the first responders, the fema workers and others on the ground, but they have lacked the resources that are needed. and the latest tax measure actually treats puerto rico as if it were a foreign country. the facts on the ground are half the island is without electricity. and a lot of the island lack potable drinking water. the schools are are stistill sh. the roads, some of them, are impassable, and they are on the brink of failure. that's why we've seen massive immigration unprecedented in recent years. >> what can be done about it legislatively? as you know, congress just passed this tax bill which had this really sinister effect, if i may, on puerto rico. >> it has an insidious,

pernicious effect on manufacturing in puerto rico because it imposes 12.5% tax on manufacturing there, treating puerto rico as if it were china, in effect. but here's what i think needs to be done. first of all, that provision needs to be repealed. second, the emergency supplemental relief package needs to specifically allocate the money -- the governor has requested $94 billion -- not just to repair but rebuild. provide the temporary shelters that are needed, but also the longer term housing, the electricity that makes use of renewables, like solar, not oil, and makes the transmission reliable. this kind of investment has to be seen as an american obligation to fellow americans. they are fellow americans. they fought in our wars. they've lived in our communities. connecticut has the highest

concentration of puerto rican communities of any in the country. we're very proud of them. and we welcome them, but they need the brains and talent that are otherwise going to come to the mainland. >> please come back soon and keep us up to speed on this. >> will do. >> thank you very much. cheeseburger in paradise? the president's reported fear of being poisoned and other personal details in that bombshell book. you're watching "andrea mitchell reports" on msnbc.

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so how did michael wolff get such an up close and personal look at the white house in 21 da days? my panel is here. phil, how the heck did michael wolff get in there and stay and stay and stay? >> that's a great question, andrea. it seems like he began with a series of meetings with steve bannon but he met with a number of white house officials in those early months. sources said he would sort of spend five, six, seven hours a day in the west wing sort of lingering on the couch, going into offices, talking to different staffers as they passed by and just gathered information. some of it was obtained, as the author acknowledges in his book, in an off-the-record capacity,

but it's made its way into this book. >> the fact that he seems to have details, and we can't vouch for the content of the book, and we'll be talking to him, he will be on the "today" show tomorrow morning, but the fact is does it ring true? for instance, when he writes that the president is semi-literate, that he didn't process information in any conventional sense, he didn't read, he didn't skim. some believed for all practical purposes he was semi-literate. does that ring with your reporting? >> i can tell you our reporting is that the president prefers to have visual demonstrations. his briefers would bring him graphs and pictures and videos and he took in information like that rather than reading briefing books and materials. that doesn't mean he's illiterate. his reference to newspapers would suggest he is reading

them. but things in this book are systematic of what we've been reporting of the simmering tensions and battles among the advisers. >> and some of them are so extraordinary. ann gearen, let's talk about the president's supposed fear of being poisoned, that he had a long-time fear of being poisoned. one of the reasons why he liked to eat at mcdonald's, no one knew he was coming so it was presumably safe. >> one of the details in the book is that he still likes to eat cheeseburgers at night, so i guess we don't really know where the cheeseburgers come from. >> cheeseburgers in bed, no less. >> yes. and while watching tv and talking on the phone. who doesn't, really? the whole picture is one that is so profounding unflattering that i think apart from the specifics that the white house is taking

issue with, you know, they seem to be sort of gobsmacked by the portrait in total of how chaotic it is and the blame laid directly at the president's feet for that chaos. >> bill crystal, this is a bombshell in the middle of an already divided republican party post alabama. the steve bannon effect, breitbart, the way the base could potentially be affected by this heading into a midterm. >> hard to know. i think most people -- if you're already a trump supporter, you're probably going to stick with donald trump over steve bannon. but i think it's a big blow and the reaction of the president says that. he seems to have called this private lawyer and had the lawyer send a cease and desist letter, i guess, to bannon and the author and publisher. which is amazing, this whole notion that you sign a

non-disclosure agreement and then that could be -- you can be in a presidential campaign and when you leave that campaign, you can't speak about matters of presidential import? that's shocking to me, actually. did they know about that when the president called his own private lawyer? what it means is donald trump is very upset. plenty of people have said nasty things about him, plenty of newspapers have is written articles with quotes. this is the first time, to my knowledge, that he's tried to play that card. why? because he wants to intimidate other people from coming forward, especially the campaign. what is he scared about so much in the campaign? what is the big thing in the book about the campaign? bannon took the russia charge seriously, right? bannon thought it could really doom the trump presidency. he obviously thought something was going on there. for me that's the real -- the rest of it is all interesting, but for me that's the real story here, that trump is very worried about russia and that's why he wants to intimidate other people

from coming forward and saying, this is happened during the campaign. >> phil, what is the bottom line for you? >> the bottom line, andrea, is that we're starting 2018 just as we left it in 2017. this is a really chaotic beginning for this administration. we're now on the second day of dealing with this book and it's probably going to continue for some time, and it's driven by the president's anger and his response to this. our sources were telling us he was spending hours yesterday trying to deal with how to respond to bannon, fuming about the book with his closest advisers, and it's really distracting the president from the business of the country. >> and he's trying to change the subject today. he's got a critical meeting on immigration. this, and as three former homeland security secretaries, bipartisan, chernoff, napolitano and jeh johnson writing, you don't have a march deadline, you really have a mid-january deadline to the dreamers because so much has to be done to keep

them protected from deportation in march. >> everybody has a theory of who gives up what in order for dreamer legislation to become reality and move forward. but the time is so short that it really seems very difficult to do absent a -- something we haven't seen, which is the president stepping in directly and saying, i want this to happen, make this happen. he could do that at a meeting like the one today, but there is no indication he will. >> and the democrats saying we'll accept funding for the wall. >> we'll take some part of that deal, and we don't have an indication of that. >> we'll leave it there. there is a lot more coming from the book in the next days, weeks, months. next, disbanded. the white house killing the commission investigating alleged and unproved voter fraud in the 2016 election. was it all about suppression in the first place? you're watching "andrea mitchell reports" on msnbc.

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hillary clinton winning the popular vote. civil rights advocates, democrats on the commission and others slammed the commission as a voter suppression ploy from the beginning. joining me now, of the senate judiciary committee. welcome to you. >> thank you, great to be on. >> good to have you here to talk first of all about this voter commission. it's now disappeared. they're already talking about other fixes for a problem that most people say didn't exist. there was never any proof of voter fraud. >> what we know is going on around the country are systemic efforts to make it harder for people to vote. whether the things that we've seen coming out of texas, whether what we saw out of north carolina or where the court actually said they were discriminating with surgical precision. this commission was a commission looking for a problem. the brennan center has shown there's been a very small number

of actually verifiable, think 31 of actual issues with fraudulent ballots out of a billion ballots cast in 14 years. what you've got going on here is a commission i believe was set out to suppress more votes and you had the mississippi republican secretary of state. saying they should go jump in the gulf of mexico when they asked for the voter data and the social security number. so basically there were concerns about the information they were asking. secretary of states across the country were against this. and i don't think it's a surprise that they finally dismantled it. >> they came right up against states rights issues. issues of security as you point out. the members of the economy had actual sued because they kind know what was going on. and the members were not even infor imed they were being disbanded until the white house release came out. >> well, no surprises. we know there's a lot of chaos. we hope they start working on with this, senator langford and i have a bill along with

senators harris and graham, that basically says lets help states in this next election to have stronger voting infrastructure with backup paper ballots and things that will really protect us from hacking. you've got democrats and republicans in the house supporting it. we could potentially get this on in the next month. former secretary chertoff did a piece in "the wall street journal" supporting my work in this area. and i think we must help the states because this would only be 3% of the cost of one aircraft carrier. when you've got russia viewing it as a type of cyber warfare. we just can't sit there unarmed, not protecting our infrastructure. >> and the other thing i think has just happened is jeff sessions today was the deadline, 300 days since the firing of all those u.s. attorneys around the country and so yesterday he appointed 17, replacing acting u.s. attorneys. do you have any concerns,

especially given the one who was appointed in a key district in man hat wherehattan where the t is and the business and all the banking community is actually a partner of rudy giuliani, a great partner of the presidents. >> i would want to look at that person. there's been concern through many of us on the judiciary committee with a member of the appointments, particularly on the judicial side where we've now seen republican senators, senator kennedy take on one of those appointments. we have to look at each of them on an individual basis. my concern right now today of course is not just those appointments but the fact that you still have rumblings of the people that are trying to stop the mueller investigation. that are trying to get the attorney general to resign or get fired and while i certainly don't support many of the things that attorney general sessions has done, the last thing you want to do is to fire someone because you don't like a

criminal investigation that's taking place. that is against everything this country stands for, which is a country of laws. >> i think you're referring to others from the so-called freedom forum, rather, the freedom caucus and the house, republican caucus, calling for jeff sessions to step down. when you talk about robert mueller, one thing also comes to mind, the revelations in this new book by michael wolff about the way the president talked about women in particular, sally yates, the former acting attorney general. mike wolff writes in firing, to trump, he was just up against sally yate, who, he steamed, such a blank, expletive deleted. hope hicks, someone so close to him, the gatekeeper in the oval office, trump, who otherwise according to michael wolff's

book, seemed to treat hicks in a protective and even parental way, looked up and said why, you've already done enough for him. you're the best piece of tail he'll ever have, sending hicks running from the room. a horrible description of the way he treats women in the white house. >> i haven't read the book yet. and these things are unbelievable, but i don't think anyone there who reads his twitter feed would be surprised or some of the tapes that have come out in the past. what really matters to me is what are the legal ramifications of this. what happened at these meetings and this coordination with russia. because we know we have someone that isn't respecting civility in the white house. but what we need to know are what are the facts of the potential collusion with the foreign government which are against the laws of america.

>> senator chlklobuchar, thank very much. the latest on the snow bomb exploding across the east coast and certainly in the midwest and through the southeast. record setting winds whipping snow and ice up and down the i-95 corridor. coming up, al roker will bring us the latest forecast. so that's the idea. what do you think? hate to play devil's advocate but... i kind of feel like it's a game changer. i wouldn't go that far. are you there? he's probably on mute. yeah... gary won't like it. why? because he's gary.

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and that does it for us.

be careful out there in the snow and ice and follow us on facebook and twitter twitter, @mitchellreports. craig melvin is up next. >> damage control. the president just talked about those claims made in that explosive new book that's not even out yet. his thoughts on steve bannon's harsh words for the first family. and they let the wolff in the white house. the man behind that book defending his work. apparently there are tapes. so what's the strategy for this white house? today's briefing is expected to start in about 30 minutes. you can see reporters there already starting to assemble. also the big story today, a snow bomb. parents of this country under a blizzard warning. and, folks, it's about to get worse. after the snow, many of us will start to see subzero temperatures. we're going to check in with the one and only al roker in just a few moments. we start with denial and