hello, everybody. i'm david gura at msnbc headquarters in new york. expressing regret, breitbart's steve bannon writing an apology to president trump, but after attacking his family and his leadership style, will it be enough to put the person the president's called sloppy steve back in good graces? not holding back after a weekend of mapping out 2018 with republican leadership, the president puts his intellect, the media, as well as the book he calls fake front and center. >> one of the things i think about this book and why it's hit such a chord and become this cultural moment is it's given everybody this focused opportunity to say, holy crap. >> political football. alabama and georgia taking center stage in tomorrow's

national championship in atlanta, but the presence of donald trump could steal the show. what the commander in chief hopes to accomplish. we begin this hour with some breaking news. steve bannon apologizing to president trump and his family for remarks he made in michael wolff's new book, "fire and fury." well, that apology includes, "i regret that my delay in responding to the inaccurate reporting regarding don junior has diverted attention from the president's historical accomplishments in the first year of his presidency. that first year documented in salacious detail in "fire and fury," which he defended yet again this morning on nbc's "meet the press." >> i went into this and a decent part of the country went into this, his entire staff went into this thinking maybe this can work. it's different, even peculiar, but who knows what can happen here. and that was exactly my frame of reference. i would have been delighted to have written a contrarian

account here, donald trump, this unexpected president is actually going to succeed. okay. that's not the story. he is not going to succeed. >> we've got this busy sunday covered from every angle, including from the white house itself, and that's where we get started with nbc's geoff bennett. geoff, help me with the timing here, four days of back-and-forth with the president, talking about what's in the book, talking about his mental acuity. why did steve bannon decide to make this apology now? >> reporter: hey, david. the inflection point seems to be a combination of things. on the one hand, you have president trump yesterday at camp david giving voice to his tweets, criticizing steve bannon with that nickname sloppy steve. and then you have this morning a handful of senior administration officials using their appearances on some of the sunday talk shows to rally behind president trump and then undermine the credibility of this book, "fire and fury" to include the policy adviser, stephen miller, a one-time bannon acolyte, who today distanced himself from bannon, calling him an angry and

vindictive person. that's the quote. so look, if you're steve bannon, your power rests really on your proximity to the president and having a platform. steve bannon says he's someone who wants to carry the torch of trumpism, but look, this whole thing comes at a time when steve bannon's financial backers, the mercer family, have cut ties with him. his perch atop breitbart news appears threatened, and then the president saying steve bannon at one point lost his mind because of the comments that he gave to michael wolff. michael wolff, we should say, was on "meet the press" this morning, as you pointed out, and he highlighted another complicating factor in the relationship between bannon and president trump, that bannon, according to wolff's account, takes credit for trump's 2016 win. take a look. >> this was his -- he looked at this as his moment. he made donald trump president, and the president -- >> he believes this? >> not only does he believe this, it's absolutely true. steve went into this campaign in the middle of august.

it had fallen apart. it had imploded. it was over. steve was the guy who said, you know, there is a case here. it's the economy, stupid. if we go through florida, ohio, michigan, pennsylvania, we can pull this off. >> reporter: now, i can tell you in talking with a white house official, david, that this is not where they want to be. they're coming off this huge victory, legislative victory on tax cuts. the stock market is soaring. and yet, here we are this fourth or fifth day having this really extraordinary conversation about the president's fitness to serve, david. >> geoff, thank you very much. geoff bennett with an update from the white house this more. now msnbc contributor and soon-to-be white house correspondent and jacquelin cleems. yamiche, this is not where this white house wants to be. we had the tax cut legislation passed, signed into law before the holidays. the president at camp david trying to set an agenda, set a

course here for 2018. where does this white house want to be and what are they going to be able to do to get president trump back to that agenda and off the topic of this book? >> this white house really wants to be talking about, it should have been in some ways tax week. it should have been senators and congressmen talking about all the legislative achievements that they made. they should have been talking about the fact that they were able to put a dent in obamacare by repealing the individual mandate, but instead what they're talking about is this book. and the idea that president trump is literally tweeting from camp david, essentially from meetings where he's supposed to be setting out his legislative agenda, tells us that this president is not focused that this president is only focused really on michael wolff, that this has obviously gotten under his skin. and fact that you have stephen miller and other white house aides having to scramble to defend the president on tv, have to call him a genius to essentially make him feel better, this is not where the president wants to be. >> pamela levy, let me ask you whether this will change the discourse we've been having here, the president continuing

to weigh in on the book, continuing to weigh in on allegations that his mental acuity is in question. is this apology likely to make a difference in terms of how we talk about this book in particular? >> yeah, i don't think that the apology coming, you know, days after this book has come out, is going to change our perception of the book at this point. i do think that, you know, i could see some sort of informal reconciliation here or a truce between the white house and breitbart at this point. i mean, certainly, as we know, steve bannon needs the white house. as your contributor said, you know, benefits from his proximity to trump, from the same donors. at the same time, this white house benefits from breitbart news and having them on his side constantly. so i think that it's in both parties' interests to ultimately sort of calm this war down. whether or not there will be an explicit healing and reconciliation, i don't know. >> jacquelin, i just want to revisit that press conference yesterday at camp david. he talked about the allegations

in the book. he talked about the domestic policy agenda. he also talked about north korea. and i'll read from that memorable tweet from a few days ago. "north korean leader kim jong-un just stated that the nuclear button is on his desk at all times. will somebody from his depleted and starved regime inform him that i too have a button and it's bigger and more powerful and my button works." north korea and south korea have agreed to come to the table, north korea indicating it will send athletes to the winter olympics here in a few weeks' time. do you have a clear sense of what the administration's policy toward north korea is, and what are experts saying to you about the fallout, if any, from the tweet that the president sent a few days ago? >> there definitely seems to be a disconnect on the administration's north korea policy. here we see the president saying inflammatory things like this, while at the same time, members of his cabinet, like defense secretary jim mattis, are trying to tamp down this rhetoric and emphasize that diplomacy is the number one thing. so, these talks between north

and south korea are a big step towards this. and experts widely say that tweets like this are not helpful, it increases the chances of some sort of miscalculation that could lead to military action, and ultimately, the best thing the president can do is just kind of keep these tweets to himself. >> yamiche, on that point, you had that tweet a few days ago, you had the book providing all the information that's provided in that book. did color the way we interpreted what was in it? in other words, there are questions about mental stability. i suppose a take on a different color or tone when they're read in the context of some seeming carelessness here about the use of nuclear weapons. >> and there are two things going on. running, i think you asked about this idea of the president's focus and steve bannon's apology. this to me colors the book in that this president is continuing to focus on the books and steve bannon's actually talking about this book, because obviously, there's some truth to that. there's a lot of conversation out there about what michael wolff got wrong and right, but there was enough in there that got right that this has been a full court press by the president. the second thing is, yes, if the

idea that he's responding to this book and tweeting in this way almost incessantly and really going back to the 2016 campaign-style donald trump, that tells us that he's at least feeling unstable and unfocused. and i don't know how republicans who are there in camp david who are trying to get him to talk about infrastructure, who are trying to get him to talk about the wall and immigration and welfare reform, i don't know how they tear him away from twitter to say, look, we really need to focus on these things, because right now this president is very angry and he's continuing to watch cable news. >> pema, i want to ask you about the policy path forward. that's what they were discussing at camp david over the weekend. there was a long list of things he said he'd like to prioritize, including immigration and daca. of course, he has to figure out how to keep the government funded as well. what's your sense of what this white house wants to prioritize? and there was a lot of rhetoric here before the holiday. he sat down with michael schmidt of "the new york times" and talked about all the windows of opportunity he sees when it comes to bipartisan cooperation. where, if anywhere, do you see

that happening? >> yeah, i think that that's the big question is whether or not this white house and this president can stay focused long enough to get more of their agenda passed. you know, we have elections at this point ten months away. certainly, there are the basic things. let's keep the government open. there is immigration, daca. that's a big deal that's coming right around the corner. and i assume that democrats will continue to ratchet up their demands on that front. and certainly, you have the priorities of paul ryan and the republicans in congress who want to see essentially a continued welfare reform and entitlements scaled back. so i think that there's a lot to happen. at the same time, this is a distractible president, you know. if he was as confident as he says, he probably wouldn't have to spend all his time tweeting rebukes to this book. so i think the big question is whether or not the white house will be able to stay focused long enough to notch more achievements. >> jacqueline, we're about ten days away from a potential

government shutdown, and one thing you hear time and time again is that puts national security in jeopardy. you cover that for politico. what do you make of the conversation in washington at this point? how likely does it seem to you? what are your sources telling you about the likelihood that we could see a government shutdown in less than two weeks' time? >> both sides are, of course, saying they don't want to see a government shutdown, but at the same time saying, but if it does happen, this is going to be the fault of the other side. so it's already becoming a political talking point for both parties. right now it's not really clear what the path forward is, but the democrats and republicans, there seems to be a lot of daylight between what they're asking for. so it's not clear if they'll reach a solution. in terms of what this means for national security, pentagon officials have already said that the cr through now is bad enough. having a government shutdown is just going to emphasize and make worse some of these problems in terms of readiness and some of the rebuilding of the military that the administration has said it wants to happen. >> yamiche, i want to play a sound bite from michael wolff on "meet the press" this morning.

there's a lot in the book where a deputy campaign manager for the president says he tried to explain the constitution, couldn't get past the fourth amendment. apparently, there is a lot of talk within the west wing about the 25th amendment. let's have a listen. >> i mean, it's an extraordinary moment in time, and the last several days focused on my book i think are proof of this. this is, what happened here? what's going on here? this is, you know, i think not an exaggeration and not unreasonable, and it's not unreasonable to say this is 25th amendment kind of stuff. this is -- >> did anybody say that in the west wing to you? >> all the time. >> 25th amendment? they would bring up the 25th amendment? >> actually, they would say we're not sort of in the midperiod, we're not at a 25th amendment level yet. >> yamiche, help me out with my knowledge of the constitution. that would be that cabinet

members could take action against the president here. i guess the question it begs is where do we go from here, in light of what you've learned from the book? what's the conversation likely going forward among administration officials? >> i think among administration officials, there will be two things. one, how do we not talk to the press anymore and become a less closed place, because michael wolff has been essentially allowed to roam around all week. and he has a passage where he says no one could really open the door for me, but nobody could close it for me. basically, they were not able to shut him down. the second thing is, there are people that obviously don't really believe that this president is capable of doing the job, and i think there are going to be a lot of people in the white house who are going to be trying to say, how do we shield the president from knowing what we really think about him and how do we not let the public understand that this president might not be understanding of the constitution. when i read in the book that the president didn't really want to talk about the constitution, i too as a reporter sat back and thought, well, what does that really mean for this president? because essentially, he's someone who didn't have government experience and didn't really study enough of it before he got into office to really

understand all the powers and all the issues that he has to deal with. >> all right, thank you all for your time this afternoon. appreciate it. still ahead, sessions' survival. how the attorney general's avoided the fate of other cabinet members in friction with the president. what's keeping jeff sessions in the fold despite the friendly fire? plus, a possible presidential appearance at a college football game tomorrow and what it could send to his supporters.

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but everything that i've

done is 100% proper. that's what i do is i do things proper. and you know, i guess the collusion now is dead, because everyone found that after a year of study, there's been absolutely no collusion. there has been no collusion between us and the russians. >> president trump trying to put to rest the contention that his campaign had any part of russian meddling during the 2016 presidential election. this as republican senators chuck grassley of iowa and senator lindsey graham of south carolina look to turn up the heat on former british spy christopher steele, author of the trump dossier. here was graham this morning on "meet the press." >> i want a special counsel to look at not only how mr. steele conducted himself, what the fbi did with the dossier, whether mr. ohher, whose wife worked along steele, what involvement did he have in the dossier, and i want to know if the lead investigator of the clinton e-mail investigation had a political bias against trump. >> joining us now, midwin charles, contributor to "esse e

"essence" along with michael conway, serving with the house judiciary committee in the inquiry of richard nixon. i want to ask about a change in tone or rhetoric that i've heard here. before the holidays, it seemed like a lot of republicans were calling into question robert mueller and these other investigations. now you have president trump and others all but sticking a fork in this, saying it's done, it's time to move on. this has played on for a year. it's time to move on to other things and we can talk about what those are in a moment. have you detected the same change or turn in rhetoric? >> to a certain extent, but what's unfortunate is that the president of the united states, as well as all the others who have said that this investigation should be over, don't understand that it just doesn't work that way. this special counsel is charged with looking at whether or not a foreign power, here russia, interfered with our election, our presidential election. and his mandate is to look into anything that comes from that, anything that dovetails out of that, which is why you see with manafort an indictment with respect to money laundering. that is his job. it can end at any time.

i mean, when you look at ken starr and when he started investigating clinton and whitewater and ended up with monica lewinsky. that took four years. so i hate to break it to president trump as well as those who support him, that you know, mueller can go at this for quite some time. >> michael, i'll have you weigh in on that. i want to see when you've heard the same change in rhetoric and ask what that means or says to you about where we are in this particular investigation. >> well, we're at the beginning of the investigation. special counsel mueller has a lot to look into. it was 26 months from the time of the watergate break-in to the time that president nixon resigned. and interestingly, you know, republicans have criticized the special counsel by saying he's going into issues of money laundering, issues of finance. the same thing happened in watergate. alexander haig, the chief of staff for nixon's white house, told archibald cox, the special prosecutor who began looking into questions about money given to nixon to refurbish his home in california, and he said that

if he continued in that, the president would discharge cox. so it's the same thing over again. >> michael, i want you to respond to reports this week, including from nbc news, that don mcgahn, the president's counsel, asked for some pressure to be applied -- or applied some pressure himself, rather, on attorney general jeff sessions, trying to convince him not to recuse himself from the russia investigation. help us understand the gravity of that. >> it's tremendously important and very serious, because the justice department is supposed to be independent of the presidency. as a matter of fact, the idea of having a compliant justice department has its roots in watergate as well. before the special counsel was appointed, special prosecutor cox, in april of 1973, the attorney general himself, and henry peter soernsion the head of the criminal division, gave private briefings to president nixon, telling him what the prosecutors were thinking, telling him what grand jury testimony had been, and nixon used that to form his cover-up

strategy. and so, having a compliant justice department was at the root of the watergate scandal. and so, to here, getting jeff sessions to stay in charge, jeff sessions, a supporter of the president, would have compromised the integrity of the investigation when everybody at the justice department told the attorney general, the career professionals told him he had to recuse himself. >> midwin, what do you make of jeff sessions' position in this administration right now? he's still called out by the president from time to time. on twitter, there's reporting about pressure exerted upon him many months ago. is there an unfirability to him at this point? he's an uneasy fit in this administration, seemingly, but can't be gotten rid of. >> i don't think anybody's safe in this administration. looking back at the year we've had, i think the count is 15 or 16 people who have either been fired or have resigned. no one is safe in this administration, and i know that there's been a lot of hoopla with respect to the book "fire and fury," painting a picture of an unstable white house, of a very incompetent white house,

but all one need do is look at the number of firings and resignations. i mean, how many, you know, press secretaries have we had in the past year? it becomes abundantly clear that this is an administration that is unable to kind of get it together and make sure that people do the jobs that they're supposed to do. so i don't know that jeff sessions is safe, but i do know that his agenda is one that is potentially incredibly harmful on civil rights and a whole host of other issues. >> michael, i want to ask you about two other items in the news. you had hillary clinton in the news yet again here as word came out that the fbi's been investigating the clinton foundation yet again. house intelligence ranking member adam schiff responded to that earlier today. >> if they are investigating hillary clinton, it doesn't take a genius, let alone a stable genius, to see why. it's not because there's some new evidence that's come to light. it's because they're being badgered by the white house to do it. these cracks that we're seeing in the independence of the justice department ought to concern every american. >> michael, do you see those

fissures, those cracks? how concerning are they to you? >> absolutely. the congressman's exactly right. have the president direct the law enforcement officials to go after a political opponent is the height of a dictatorial form of government. the justice department should follow the facts and law. they've had it once. they had a thorough investigation. they reported their results, but the president persists. and it does create fissures in the concept of the independence of the justice department, and it also will put a cloud over anything that the justice department ultimately concludes. >> so you've got that happening there, the fbi looking into the clinton foundation yet again, midwin, and then you've got this news item about two republican members from the senate judiciary committee making a criminal referral to the justice department about christopher steele. is that more than a distraction to you? do you see greater importance to that? >> i think it's just a distraction. and most importantly, what i find disturbing about all of this, really, is that you have congressmen who are responsible, really, to make sure that no

foreign power has tried to infiltrate us or tried to sort of disrupt our elections. and rather than focus on that, and rather than get to the bottom of that, there's been all this attempt to deflect from that, right? you're talking about the same party that has gone through great lengths to keep people from voting, right? voter i.d.s are so necessary because someone might infiltrate, someone might, you know, try to vote when they're not supposed to vote, but you're also talking about a foreign power who has tried to infiltrate us or who has tried to disturb our democracy p. and rather than put all the energy and effort into getting to the bottom of that, it's nothing but deflection. investigating hillary, why not investigate former president obama? at one point, you ask why don't these congressmen, whose job it is to follow the constitution to make sure nothing untoward happened in the 2016 election, why not get to the bottom of it? what is it that they're trying to hide?

>> midwin charles, michael conway, thank you. still ahead, a golden opportunity. one of hollywood's biggest nights, and how they will attract the country's biggest scandal. will politics and protest overtake the golden globe awards? for singing definitely dry mouth has been a problem for me. i'm also on a lot of medications that dry my mouth. i just drank tons of water all the time. it was never enough. i wasn't sure i was going to be able to continue singing. i saw my dentist. he suggested biotene. it feels refreshing. my mouth felt more lubricated. i use biotene rinse twice a day and then i use the spray throughout the day. it actually saved my career in a way. biotene really did make a difference. [heartbeat]

welcome back. i'm david gura. here are some of headlines we're watching at this hour. right now a search is under way for 32 crew members missing after an iranian oil tanker collided with a chinese freighter late saturday. officials say the iranian tanker was lost in fire in the east china sea. here in the u.s., hollywood is preparing for one of its biggest nights. >> you want to address it, but you also want to remind people that despite all that awful stuff that happened, this was a great year for film and television. >> "late night's" seth meyers on the golden globes, which he will be hosting, while actors and actresses are expected to speak out on the issue of sexual misconduct. many plan to attend dressed in black as a statement against the culture of sexual misconduct. and today, former white house chief strategist steve bannon apologizing to the trump family after being quoted extensively in michael wolff's "fire and fury" tell-all book. in his statement, he calls the president "a great man" and he apologizes to his son, donald

trump jr., for his negative comments. well, bannon's apology came after the white house began to downplay his role in donald trump's presidential campaign. earlier this morning, "fire and fury" author michael wolff outlined bannon's 2016 role on nbc's "meet the press." >> he made donald trump president. >> he believes this. >> not only does he believe this, it's absolutely true. steve went into this campaign in the middle of august. it had fallen apart. it had imploded. it was over. steve was the guy who said, you know, there is a case here. it's the economy, stupid, if we go through florida, ohio, michigan, pennsylvania, we can pull this off. >> michael wolff will continue to unpack his bombshell book "fire and fury" here on msnbc. on monday, joe and mika welcome wolff to the "morning joe" table and then he will sit down with lawrence o'donnell at 10:00 p.m.

eastern time for an in-depth, one-on-one conversation. for more on michael wolff's reporting and reaction from the white house, visit nbcnews.com/wolffbook. still ahead, all eyes on atlanta, where president trump could be among the spectators for the college football national championship game. pigskin politics. how his previous comments could come into play this game day. wouldn't you love to see one of these nfl owners when somebody disrespects our flag, to say get that son of a bitch off the field right now? out! he's fired. he's fired! shawn evans: it's 6 am. 40 million americans are waking up to a gillette shave. and at our factory in boston, 1,200 workers are starting their day building on over a hundred years of heritage, craftsmanship and innovation. today we're bringing you america's number one shave at lower prices every day. putting money back in the pockets of millions of americans. as one of those workers, i'm proud to bring you gillette quality for less, because nobody can beat the men and women of gillette.

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welcome back. i'm david gura. sports fans across the country are anticipating monday night's s.e.c. face-off in atlanta for the college football national championship, and the possibility of president trump attending the georgia versus alabama game, two states he carried in the 2016 election, have many wondering if this is a political play. alabama voters dealt trump a blow last month by electing democrat doug jones, and for months, the president has battled the nfl over players kneeling to protest social injustice. remember trump's war of words with georgia congressman john lewis, in which he called atlanta "crime-infested" and "falling apart." with more than 70,000 people expected to attend the game, is the president's appearance a grand gesture or a political statement? joining me now, the atlanta chapter president for the naacp, richard rose, applying editor with theroot.com, jason johnson,

and sports editor for the nation, dave xyron. dave, let me get a sense from you of the importance of this game and the degree to which politics has been involved in championships like this before. >> no, absolutely. i mean, this is alabama versus georgia. they're both teams from the southeastern conference where college football is at its most rabid, and they would take that, certainly, as a compliment. and so, while the eyes of the nation is going to be on this game, the southeast of the united states, more particularly, is going to be looking at this game. and of course, we've seen sports and politics intersect when it comes to presidents for as long as there have been sports. the first president to ever do an event with athletes was president johnson, not lyndon johnson, andrew johnson. that's how far it goes back. so trump is part of that continuum. the difference is that we've never had a president this polarizing go into a city, atlanta, where he's about as popular as the new orleans saints. >> richard rose, let's go through what we know at this point. a number of outlets reported president trump is planning to go to atlanta, the "washington

post" saying here sonny perdue and nick ayres, a george native, his chief of staff expected to attend. they say they are working with secret service to ratchet up security for his arrival. so there's the preparations that would have to be made and his attendance. in terms of a response from atlanta, what do you see happening here? >> a number of things probably will happen. several groups will plan outside the stadium protests. the atlanta naacp is working with several other groups, georgia alliance for social justice, to do a tweetstorm, because clearly, this is a grandstanding by the president. he's really not a football fan and he really hasn't been a fan of college students. there are millions of them across this country, and hasn't been a fan of education, period. he's a prep school president, put a prep school chairman as

secretary of the department of education, so they really don't care. and pence himself has a bad record for education. the national education association rated him 17% because of his record as a congressman and as a governor. so, it's ironic that they would come and insert themselves into the championship of the college football. >> and mike pence having a bad record of making it through a football game, as the vice president of the united states. jason johnson, situate this game for us politically, if you could. sarah huckabee sanders, white house press secretary, saying that this is a visit theriot of trump country, in light of who's playing in this game tomorrow night. give us your sevents political import here. >> i think atlanta's new mayor bottoms would have something to say about atlanta being the heart of trump country as well as most of metro atlanta. look, you know, david, what this really speaks to, and i think everybody else has just sort of touched upon this, donald trump has a way of just -- he's the opposite of the man with the golden touch. he poisons everything he goes to. look, we're used to george bush and bill clinton and obama. these are all presidents who

could go to sporting events. yeah, maybe there was a smattering of boos here and there, but they could enjoy it as part of american culture. but unfortunately, the president we have has always had to make everything about his himself, and therefore, it becomes a political statement just for him to go to a national championship game, instead of just having a good time. there will be protests outside. there will be people upset. and i can expect, just like with the super bowl last year, if the team that trump likes isn't winning, he'll probably skip out by the third quarter. >> david zirin, i was reading commentary by the players saying they're politically agnostic, they don't want to talk about politics. you juxtapose that with the nfl and the president's take on players taking a knee to protest social injustice. give us the historical context, the difficulty college players face. it's in a way a lot more difficult for them to make a political stand or take a political knee than for professional players. >> exactly. i mean, look at the last two years. you've seen protests in the national football league. you've seen protests at the high school level. hell, you've seen protests at

the junior high school level. you haven't seen these in college football. and it's not difficult to discern why. college football players, they have no union, they have no power, really, whatsoever, unless they choose to exercise it collectively as one, which is a pretty tall order to ask a group of 18 to 22-year-olds. it's very difficult. scholarships at these schools are renewed on an annual basis, particularly if you go to football factories like georgia or alabama. you are looking at this as an express route to the nfl, and these nfl coaches and scouts, they talk to nick saban, they talk to kirby smart, the coaches at these teams, and these players are really dependent on these folks to make sure they get a good rep report from these coaches who are themselves extremely authoritarian in terms of how they deal with these players. so we shouldn't look necessarily to the players to protest, but i'm thinking about the people who have announced that they're going to be outside the arena going down to one knee, kaepernick style before this game. that to me shows the organic connection between what we've

seen this last year. >> and jason johnson, we've seen politics layered on to college sports here over the last year, of course, with the president weighing in on twitter and in person on laughavar ball. what's that tell you about the president's attitude towards sports? >> it means that his attitude is there is no level of entertainment, whether sports or television or some kinds of news conference, that he doesn't feel that he needs to stick his finger into. and it also says that the president has a penchant for being particularly hostile for any form of expression that happens to come from women and/or african-americans. so when you have a sport like college football, which is pretty much driven by african-american college unpaid labor, this is exactly the kind of place where donald trump tends to feel that he should speak his mind and that he should talk about how grateful people who are in this sport should feel. but i also want to add this, and i think this is really important. you know, what these young men are trying to do on the field on monday is they're desperately putting their bodies on the line in the hopes of getting an unguaranteed job down the road.

the last thing they really need is for a president sticking his finger on the scale and affecting what they have been dedicating their entire lives to do, and i hope that he happens to keep quiet, which would be a rare thing for this president. >> richard rose, let me ask you about where this game is taking place, your hometown of atlanta, at mercedes-benz stadium. we've seen the president weigh in on atlanta here over the last 18 months, most memorably with regard to the congressman from the sixth district in georgia, john lewis. of course, john lewis didn't go to the president's inauguration. there's been a lot of back and forth since, tweeting "congressman john lewis should spend more time on fixing and helping his district, which is in horrible shape and falling apart, not to mention crime-infested, rather than falsely complaining about the election results. all talk, talk, talk, no action or results. sad." those rang out widely at the time. what's the fallout been from those comments in the months since? >> you know, the president just talks, talks, talk. those of us in atlanta know we have a great city with great facilities, or this football game wouldn't be held in atlanta. >> right. >> so, that's just more of the same from this president.

we will have -- we welcome the visitors to come to atlanta for this game. we welcome the players. you know, they have a lot at stake. they all serve at the pleasure of their coaches. and as the previous speaker said, you know, they have a lot on the line. they've been wanting to be here for all of their football lives, and we wish them all the best. we know there will be one winner, and the best will come out at the end. but the president, again, is just grandstanding. all he talks about how bad atlanta is. if it's so bad, don't come. >> david zirin, last question to you here. there's been so much made of the purported purity of college sports. you look at all the money that goes into it, all the questions that have been raised here. how pure are college sports at this time? how amateur are they in light of this? we see politics encroaching. we see all the money that's encroaching in it as well. is there any purported purity to college sports anymore? >> no? and here. but college sports operates on a

gutter economy of indentured servitude. and given the bodies that are on the line on the field and given the incredible salaries, $9 million, $10 million a year that the coaches make, i mean, what you're really talking about at the end of the day is the organized theft of black wealth, where these black athletes play for free, and the money that they produce, literally billions of dollars, instead of going back to their families, it goes into these athletic departments. and these are state colleges, too, georgia and alabama, that are suffering a great deal in terms of their own financial situation, and yet, you go into the athletic department of alabama, i'm telling you this, it looks nicer, the training room, than nfl training rooms. i mean, it's unbelievable. it's the shangri-la of football training, because hey, the money's got to go somewhere. it's like the old "simpsons" episode where mr. burns is like, money fight, money fight! that's the way it is for the coaches while the players, meanwhile, i mean, they live this unguaranteed life. >> my thanks to all of you. important conversation. dave zirin, richard johnson,

david, thank you for joining me. president trump must turn the page the "fire and fury" scandal to tackle his 2018 agenda. what issues will take top billing? do stay with us. i just got my cashback match,

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welcome back. i'm david gura. we were discussing the president turning his attention from "fire and fury" to his agenda for 2018. he just tweeted about the most corrupt media awards of the year, expected to be announced three hours from kickoff of the national championship kickoff game, tweeting "the fake news awards, those going to the most corrupt and biased of the mainstream media, will be presented to the losers on wednesday," changing the date of this, january 17th, "rather than this coming monday. the interest in and importance of these awards is far greater than anyone could have anticipated." that's the first tweet from the president. the second one -- "the stock market has been creating tremendous benefits for our country in record-setting stock prices, but present and future jobs, jobs, jobs, $7 million of value created since winning the election." this coming as steve bannon apologized for his role in the damning portrait of the trump administration in michael wolff's tell-all book. it appeared bannon tried to bury the feud with president trump

saying his comments about the russia meeting at trump tower were aimed at paul manafort, not donald trump jr., saying "my comments were aimed at paul manafort, a seasoned campaign professional with experience and knowledge of how the russians operate. he should have known they were not aimed at don junior." also here to weigh in is doug thornell and gop strategist matt mackowiak. great to have you both here. matt, let me start with you and this apology. what difference does it make, coming as it comes now, four days after the publication of this book? is it likely to change much when it comes to the president's estimation of steve bannon or bannon's influence in the republican party? >> it remains to be seen. it's obviously a very late apology. sounds like bannon was prepared to apologize initially and then took offense at the strong statements that the president put out after the book excerpts

came out. look, the problem steve bannon has is it's not about the apology. in the apology, he doesn't deny the comments that are in the book, and he certainly doesn't apologize for enabling the author to have the access he had in the white house to senior staff, and perhaps even to the president himself. that remains the fundamental problem that steve bannon has. this book remains a problem for this white house. it's still getting a lot of attention and is still the best-seller. that's steve bannon's fault as much as anybody else. >> the president continues to only gauge with the book and what's in it, allegations that he doesn't have the mental capacity to engage with the job, that his mental acuity's in question. what do you make of the fact that he keeps engaging with those issues in particular? >> well, the book has obviously touched a nerve within the white house and with the president, and i've actually been a little surprised about how aggressive the white house and this president has been in terms of going after the author and going after this book, going after bannon. i think in some ways, it may have had an unintended consequence of elevating the book, you know. it sold out i think its first

run, and it was launched actually earlier than had planned. and i just think that they -- you know, look, other administrations have dealt with critical books in the past and they've done it in a way, whether it was a republican or a democrat, where they sort of just dismissed it and moved on and talked about their message. and this white house just isn't capable of doing that. >> matt, let's talk about immigration, daca and the wall proposal, this presented to dick durbin, democrat from the senate, late last week. what's proposed is $33 billion in new border spending, reported $18 billion here devoted to building that wall on the u.s./mexico border. this is something the president can't seem to get away from. here you have the immediacy, that deadline for daca for march of this year. how do you as a republican feel about him continuing to harp on or hold on to the wall? how important is it to you and other republicans that he continue to bring this up? >> i think republicans are pretty united on trying to solve the underlying problem while also helping those that are receiving daca benefits, which

the deadline expires march 5th. now, the spending bill is separate from that. i know democrats are trying to connect the two things. the spending deadline's this month, but daca is march, so we'll see if they can decouple those issues. but the border security proposal they put forward takes us from something like 650 miles of wall or fence up to 1,000 miles. it's not a significant increase. it is expensive, $18 billion. they're not going to get probably that full amount, but they may get part of it, and it's important to remember, in 2013, 54 senate democrats voted for hundreds of millions of dollars in border security. democrats were for more border security at one point. they're against it now because trump's for it. whether they can hold that view going forward without solving the underlying problem of a porous border i think is a question. >> doug, i'll get you to respond to that but i want to read a statement from dick durbin. "president trump has said he may need a good government showdown to get the wall. it's outrageous that the white house would undercut months of

bipartisan efforts by again trying to put its entire wish list of hardline, anti-immigrant bills, plus an additional $18 billion in wall funding on the backs of these young people," those he's referencing, the d.r.e.a.m.ers. what do you make of dick durbin's response? how do democrats respond to this going forward? should they be worried about the shutdown affecting the whole? >> well, republicans run everything in washington, the congress and white house. if government shuts down, it's because republicans were unable to do their job. now, on daca, i think that there is a bipartisan coalition there to do something as early as tomorrow, if necessary. you have 34 house republicans who have said that they want to have a permanent fix to daca. there's enough house democrats to pass it in the house and likely in the senate. it's just, you know, when you confuse it and sort of mix it up with this border wall, which is deeply unpopular, you're going to have things grind to a halt. and i think that's unfair to all those kids who are in this country and need some certainty.

>> my thanks to both of you for joining me this sunday afternoon. doug and matt, thank you both very much for your time. >> thanks a lot. >> we'll be right back. ♪ when heartburn hits... fight back fast with tums smoothies. it starts dissolving the instant it touches your tongue... and neutralizes stomach acid at the source. ♪ tum tum tum tum... smoothies... only from tums

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that's it for us. i'm david gura. the news continues now with yasmin vossoughian. >> hello, everybody. i'm yasmin vossoughian. i'm sorry. steve bannon apologizing to the president and his family for comments he made about donald trump jr. in michael wolff's explosive tell-all book, "fire and fury." is he mentally fit?

the book also sparking debates about whether president trump is mentally fit for office. we're going to hear from a former trump adviser who's quoted in the book calling the president an expletive fool. and a fast and furious defense. the president and his allies lashing out at the author, calling the book a fake and a pile of trash. lots to cover here. let's get started. >> i would have been delighted to have written a contrarian account here -- donald trump, this unexpected president, is actually going to succeed. okay. that's not the story. he is not going to succeed. >> the book is best understood as a work of very poorly written fiction. and i also will say that the author is a garbage author of a garbage book. >> we have all these, you know, wise ac wiseacres out there wanting to criticize and be presumptuous about judging everyone's intelligence. i can tell you he's got the wherewithal to do things no politician hasee