that's going to be made tonight at the golden globes. a lot of people will be watching that. thank you for bringing it up in your daily share. we have a lot to break down this hour. starting off with banning back. ing down. the former advise issuing an apology about donald trump jr. is it enough to stop his fall from grace. that book fueling debate on the air waes about the president's mental fitness with the president himself having a lot to say on the subject. plus republicans pushing the fbi to look into criminal charges against the man behind the das ya in the russian investigation. is this just an attempt to muddy the waters for robert mueller. we'll look at that as well. we begin with the bomb shell apology from steve bannon, who has been under fire from the president as sloppy steve and facing backlash from his usual defenders after calling the infamous donald trump jr. meeting treasonous.

he says donald trump jr. is both a patriot and a good man. he has been relentless in his advocacy for his father and the agenda that has helped turn our country around. i regret that my delay in responding to the inaccurate reporting regarding don jr. has diverted attention from the president's historical accomplishments in the first year of his presidency. but that may quell only one art of the controversy. >> surrogates from the presid t president. >> my observation is that my dealings with the president on some of the most important issues that the president has to face are as professional and as thoughtful as the american people deserve. >> the author is a garbage author of a garbage book. and the tragic thing about this book and there are many things that are unfortunate, but the portrayal of the president in the book is so contrary to

reali reality. >> i can tell you he has the wherewithal to do something no politician has been able to do. >> when i worked with the president and around him and senators, he's been an active and effective leader. >> thr a lot of questions we want to break down when it comes to this story. the bannon apology, is that enough to get him in the good graces of the president? >> and while the president has taken on the questions about his mental fitness head on, is this really a debate the white house wants to be having now.

and let's start with that bannon apology saying his comments about treason were aimed at paul manafort, not don jr. i want to remind our viewers exactly what was said in that original quote, which clearly refers to the three senior guys in the campaign. that's referring to don jr.,man tort and jared kushner. is this apology to satisfy the audience clearly aimed at president trump and his son? is that going to be sufficient? what we heard today from steve bannon. >> it depends on what steve bannon is aiming for. as we reported at the post, the president's good graces are not the only thing that steve bannon may be seeking in this regretful statement. and i guess i take issue with the idea that it's an apology, per se. he said it overemphasized his comment bs by blaming don jr. a

assuming don jr. was an unpatriotic person. in this instance, steve is saying, no, i really mean that paul manafort should have known better and this was a bad idea and a bad meeting. because russians are not our friends. but the president isn't the only audience that bannon is reaching out to. he's also concerned about his platform, which is breitbart and whether or not he's going to be able to stay on top of that it very important tool for the conservative movement. >> carol brings up a good point. which is there was some delay when the news first broke about this book and what we heard from steve bannon. but what was interesting is do you think bannon was perhaps waiting to see whether or not he's going to receive support from backers? we know that he received actually a rare public rebuke

from his main financial benefit t benefactors. >> think about what a corner he's bye-bye pushed in. not only alienated donald trump, but alienated his financial supporters, the mersers, and quite frank frankly, had they pushed the issue, he would have been pushed into. outer darkness. so this is kind of a pathetic move for a tough guy. steve bannon hates to apologize as much as donald trump. his slogan is is i don't care, i u never back off. the fact he issued this would indicate he realizes he's going to be professionally annihilated unless he tries to do it. but this is not really that much of an apology. there's nothing about ivanka and jared. he doesn't deny the comments made in this book. there's a lot of bah nonstuff that is still hanging out there. >> it was aimed at cleaning up

the mess about being treasonous. that's one thing. but that's not the only thing staid about trump jr. he also said he would be cracked like an egg on national tv and that trump jr. as you were just talking as you mentioned are right targets on any money laundering investigation. so let me get your thoughts on this. does the fact that bannon's b biggest sin that his comments are about the trump family, do you think that's the reason we have seen him outcast all of a sudden? >> yes, because the direction of the comments on the family crossed a line of which president trumpen couldn't tolerate. when it comes to the family, it's different. an apology usually consists of somehow saying somewhere in it the words sorry, maybe asking for forgiveness. it is not what he said u. clarifying that i really meant

to muddy someone else's water doesn't say he didn't say it. which is important in the story u. bannon is a derivative figure and it's being close to being reckoned with. he's nothing without trump. he can't even stay financiall l float without the big republican donors, in particular the mercer family. the people who have faith and want the trump presidency to succeed, i'm talking about the rank and file people who bannon was trying to appeal to in saying we have to burn down washington in order to build it up. if they have to choose between steve bannon and donald trump, it's not a contest. they would go with trump. the man who brought them to the dance. >> there's another point that the book raises, which i thought personally was fascinating. it's a discussion that the media has had a lot of people have criticized for having it about

the mental fitness of the president. here's what the author told chuck todd today on "meet the press." watch this. >> did anybody say that in the west wing? >> all the time. 25th amendment. they would bring up the 25th amendment. we' sort of in the mid-period, we're not at a 25th amendment level yet. >> that's alarming. >> this is alarming in every way. this went on. this is a little 25th amendment. so 25th amendment is a concept that is a i live every day in the white house. >> so the idea that people in the white house are openly talking about this, does that change the discourse about mental health based on what you heard from michael wolf? >> so what we have heard in our reporting at "the washington post" is a little more nuanced than that.

there are certainly people who were concerned about a 25th amendment threat. and i believe even steve bannon did some research on this because of concern there might be a revolt of some sort or an effort to try to raise this issue. you may remember there was some public discussion about that in late summer. so i think it's a little more nuanced than everyone in the white house saying this is a 25th amendment movement or moment. i do believe there's concern about some of the teetering and careening quality of this oval office, even among the people who go in every day and try to talk to the president about something and hope for him to hear them out and make a decision and they are concerned about perhaps his lack of focus and his lack of interest after a short period of time. >> let me ask you quickly.

does this change anything on the ground for republicans? i'm not talking about republicans like jeff flake and others about to retire. i'm talking about rank and file republicans facing reelections in 2018 and others. are they going to stand up to the president or probably not? >> probably not i don't think. but i will say this. there was this moment of good will after the tax bill passed. there was an intake that maybe this will be normal and we can work with this guy. maybe it's not going to be that bad. that moment appears to have been squandered not just by this book, but by the president's over the top unhinged response, which has just succeeded at making the book that much bigger. >> we saw that on twitter.

steven miller was on cnn today making the case for him on his behalf. do we get a sense that the president is from the tweets and from the comments affected personally by some of this criticism about his mental fitness that he's taking time out to address them head on? >> absolutely. one of the buttons that now we know can be so easily pushed in president trump is that he can't just sit on all his accomplishments as he regales us with and he has to e remind us he's really smart and he went to a good college. which by the way is the working class he's making because that's e elitism left and right. there are many good colleges in the united states. not just the wurn he went to that he's trying to sort out. so anyone, this is where your common sense is allowed to rule here. what adults constantly going around telling you they are smart. this is where you can analyze

this you're, this is not behavior that most people do, especially when one has many things they can talk about that clearly show they have accomplished something. so what we have learned from this episode most importantly if you really want to get that button pushed, you got to talk about whether or not he's mentally stable or mentally fit to have office. and to that question of who is is looking at the 25th amendment at the white house, the people who study should be those in mike pence's office. >> that's something they can use. thank you for joining us. i'm going to ask you to stick around for us. tune into msnbc tomorrow for michael wolf's first cable interview. followed by a conversation with lawrence o'donnell and on tuesday wolf plays hardball live with chris matthews.

for more on michael wolf's reporting. is the president mentally fit? theresa may asked to weigh in on suggestions from michael wolf's book regard iing the president' mental health. and lindsey graham explains why he and chuck grassley want the doj to consider criminal charges against. the author of the trump dossier. beyond is a natural pet food

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lindsey graham hit the air waves to defend his attempts to get the fbi to open a criminal probe of christopher steel. he's the former british intelligence officer behind the dossier on donald trump. >> i want a special counsel to look at not only how mr. steel conducted himself, what the fbi did with the dossier, whether mr. orr, what involvement did he have in the doi dos ya u and find out if the lead investigator of the clinton e-mail investigation had a political bias against trump. >> joining me now is the former u.s. attorney for the eastern district of michigan and a professor at the university of michigan law school and frank, a former assistant director for counterintelligence at the fbi. great to have both of you with us. let me begin with you. for a lot of viewers wondering

about crihristopher steel's background, from what you know, is there some potential criminal wrong doing here on the part of cri christopher steel in terms of how he went about and collected this information. is it common practice for firms and campaigns to hire outside people to e get information on candidates? sometimes referred to as opposition research. or is this ab attempt to distract the public from the russia investigation. >> political campaigns hire outside firms to do opposition research all the time. i think the alleged crime here is that he provided false information to the fbi, that he lied to the fbi. what's so odd about this referral is is it's been made public. but only partly. it's been made public in the fact that there is a referral, but the basis of the referral is a classified document. so we don't really know what the basis of it is. is it seems like the people in the best position to decide whether a false statement has been made to the fbi is the fbi themselves. so the whole thing kind of feels unusual. and causes me to believe it's perhaps just an effort to

undermine the credibility of steel instead of a genuine concern about a crime. >> i have lost track of how many republicans are calling for a special investigation, special prosecutors, whether it's the iranian deal or christopher steel. i feel like they want to throw a special investigator at every problem that comes out now with the doj and the fbi. that they think is somehow undermining the president. >> the special council is really there for limited circumstances. it's in place when there's a concern that there's a conflict of interest. if someone is investigating the president and you work for the presidents. there's a concern there could be a potential perception of a conflict of interest if anyone at the justice department investigating it. just because it relates to politics or somebody who once ran for president doesn't rise to that level. >> the fbi is being asked to investigate this by two senior

members of the senate judiciary committees. these are like the head of the committee. in this case, do senators graham and chuck grassley, does that put pressure on the fbi to investigate steel or is it sufficient enough that robert mueller's team can simply say no thanks, we got this. >> i think both things are true. not mutually exclusive. the fbi pays real attention to any request for inquiry from the hill and has to respond and review the request. but in this case, as barbara just said, it looks like the fbi is already in possession of this information. although we really don't know because they issued a public letter of investigation and a classified attachment to it. but my guess is mueller and his team already have this and the information in question. and will act upon it

accordingly. let's remember, the fbi is in the business of collecting information and intelligence from all sources, methods, assets, informants, wouldn't be the first time some inaccurate information was acontributed to someone sharing intelligence with the fbi. it's not something that requires a special counsel. >> do you have the confidence, frank, that if robert mueller's team had the information that this dossier was not credible that they would treat that with the appropriate gloves needed and not in some way taint the rest of the investigation? >> well, i think it's all done strategically and has to be weighed. prosecuting your informant is something that's an interesting strategy. but i think they have the integrity to refer it appropriately if it's really necessary to do so. >> the president continues to say there's no evidence of collusion instead focusing on hillary clinton. here he is is on saturday from camp david. listen to this. >> there's been no collusion

between us and the russians. there has been collusion between hillary clinton and the dnc and the russians. unfortunately you people don't cover that very much. the only kcollusion is between hillary and the russians and the dnc and the russians. >> he's throwing out this constant accusation about hillary and the dnc colluding with the russian in connection with the dossier. what's the connection that he's talking about, barbara? >> i'm not sure. if there's collusion, it was a conspiracy to lose the election because that's what happened with hillary clinton and i think that the united states intelligence services have concluded that the effort by russian intelligence was to interfere with the election to enable president trump to win the election. so i don't think that that's consistent with what we have seen from the outcome of the investigation by the intelligence community. it seems to be more of an effort to detract and distract and

bring up hillary clinton again and again chrks is the boogy man for the republican party. >> frank, let me ask about this information we learned this week, which is that the fbi has been looking into the clinton foundation once again. there's attempts to revive investigations of the e-mail server, and as i mentioned earlier, the deal. >> if they are investigating hillary clinton, it doesn't take a genius to see why. it's not because there's some new evidence that's come to light. it's because they are being badgered by. the white house to do it. these cracks that we are seeing in the independence of the justice department ought to concern every american. >> so these are issues that have been investigated in the past. certainly the e-mail server issue. the clinton foundation has been looked to in the past. are you concerned that those in the fbi are being used for political purposes and they are becoming part of a larger

political game in washington where they are being badgered to investigate things based on the political pressure that's being put on them? >> this is a potentially disturbing development. we all understand from reporting that the foundation was investigated as early as 2015 by four or five fbi field offices. then all those cases were corralled into washington and reviewed by head quarters and department of justice and in 2016 the decision was made to hold off. there were concerns about proximity to the election, which is very common. now it looks like it's restarted. so the question is there new evidence that it requires this reopening or are we really living in an era where the white house can literally point to an enemy and order an investigation? and if we're in that era of asking people who are investigators and prosecutors what party they are affiliated with, it may be time to look at

the u.s. attorney in little rock because this investigation appears to be centered at fbi little rock and ask for his role because he's just appointed by president trump. we need to ask about his role and his possible recusal in the clinton foundation investigation. >> very important point there. it still haunts me to think of what president trump said about his attorney general that he wants him to be loyal to him the same way that eric holder he accused protected president obama. great to have both of you with us. thank you for your expertise. who is really in charge with the book reveals about the foreign policy decision. and from germany to india, how the media reported the findings of the book. we said, they said is next. thank you so much. thank you!

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welcome back. time for a look at we said, they said. how we look at how the media is dealing with stories here in the u.s. and around the world. it's all about fire and fury. michael wolf's explosive new book leading america's closest allies to address president trump's mental fitness. making the front page in london. his mental health questioned by

top aid. appearing in the paper begins with an excerpt from the book, donald trump's right-hand man openly questioned his fitness to serve and would resign to avoid being removed by his own cabinet. the conservative paper asked is trump still sane. the novel is called a spe spectacular drama. >> the germans drumming up viewership with drama in the white house. goes on out a limb describing the tell-all is one that would not make the president laugh. the times with erupted from the white house and it was not directed at north korea or pakistan. his lawyers tried to stop the book from hitting the shelves. spoiler alert, they have failed. which begs the question -- >> who is this guy? >> the chicago tribune describes

him as a prove ka tor who has been accused in the past of creating scenes wholesale in his previous books and columns. >> sounds like fake news to me. >> trump having a bannon moment as the independent op pines the bromance is making its end point. if steve can't have donald, neither can we. the most surprising claim in wolf's book, trump never thought he'd actually win the presidency. the trump who does have presidential ambition. s, according to the book, i-v ivanka, which has the bbc asking ivanka 2020. that's we said, they said for this week. a signal of the reach this book has had in the international media. the british prime minister was put on the spot about it just today. watch this. >> you have seen a lot of donald trump one way or another. child or stable genius? >> obviously, i have worked with president trump on a number of issues as we continue to work with the united states on a

number of issues. >> in the states, there are quite serious questions being raised by some about his mental state. do you think they are serious? >> as i say, when i deal with president trump, what i see is somebody who is committed to ensuring that he is taking decisions in the best interests of the united states. >> that was pretty much a non-answer answer there. we want to big a little deeper by taking a look at what we have learned about trump's foreign policy decision. who is really driving those decisions when it comes to some of the globe's hot spots and how the trump approach is impacting our relationship with our countries. for that i'm joined by nancy saudierberg, congressional candidate for florida. and barbara slaven, director of the future iranian initiative at the council. let me begin on the last point

we saw with the prime minister being asked about the president's mental conditions. she obviously struggled to respond with a very clear answer in the same way that e we saw the director say, no, and other senators say they have had a working relationship. they can attest to him being a mentally fit guy. how do you think trump has impacted the relationship especially with some of our allies? >> i think it's pretty awkward think time you're worried about the mental stability of the leader of the free world. it's disconcerting to our allies. they want a strong foundation to make decisions. president trump has created an earthquake below all of these relationships and no one knows quite where it's going to lead. it's very disconcerting and hurts american leadership. america has to be leading in north korea and iran and in the challenges of the world faces. so it's created ripples of concern throughout the world. >> one of the ironies is the

book gets its name from a comment that the president made when he was talking about north korea saying that they would have never seen the fire and fury that the president would unleash. but according to the book, the president has not spent a lot of time discussing north korea and other hot spots. what have you heard or what does that reveal about the president's seriousness when it comes to the issue of north korea and dealing with it? >> i do think he's serious with north korea. obama told trump that north korea is going to be the most serious issue for u.s. foreign policy. i don't like the rhetoric he's using. i don't like rocketman on a mission. it's unproductive, but i like to think trump is spending time on north korea because he's focused on it. >> very quickly, he's take an lot of credit in terms of the north and the south sitting down and having these talks this week that are taking place. does he deserve any credit?

anything from your analysis to say, yes, as a result of that type of rhetoric, calling the leader of north korea little rolktm rocketman, that it has pt pressure on north korea to come to the table. >> i don't think it's the rhetoric, but it's sanctions and pressure. they have concluded that they are not going to be able to talk with the united states. but let's also realize they have done this before. they are not on this mode. just because they are reaching out to south korea by sending a delegation to the olympics which cost them nothing. so let's not get overexcited we're now going to solve the nuclear crisis because they are sending a delegation. >> let's move to the middle east and particularly iran because michael wolf writes in the book that the former national security adviser michael flynn was the driving force really of trump's view on the region saying under the learned was the bad guy and trump to believe anyone who was opposed to iran was a pretty good guy. do you think that's an accurate

reflection of how trump came to learn about the geopolitics of the middle east? >> i think that's giving too much credit to flynn. if you remember trump as a candidate when e appeared before the israel public affairs committee, he was calling the nuclear deal the worst deal ever negotiated. he was promising to move the embassy in israel to jerusalem. he was courting sheldon ai adeleson. he wasn't around very long in the trump presidency. i think a lot of these views trump probably had beforehand and perhaps steve bannon as well. >> e let me pick up on that point about the issue of jerusalem. it's become one of the more controversial decisions so far. the decision to support it. citing the israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu and all in. bannon was quoted as saying

further, let jordan take the west bank, egypt take gaza, let them deal with it or sink trying. what do you make of that nugget about how some of these policies or that policy in the middle east came to be. >> i think the book shows that chaos is ruling there and it's driven by the donald trump himself, who likes to make policy through tweeting. the middle east is a much bigger question. are they really going to make a push for negotiations. if so, how does the issue on jerusalem delay that for a little bit or basically make the united states role a little more difficult. i think what all of the stories that are coming out of this hot new selling book is that donald trump has succeeded in up ending everything. whether he's a genius and all going to come out brilliantly or creating chaos, it's going to make america's job harder is

really the test that we're going to see in the next year. i think most o b servers would say it's not a well thought out strategy and it's whatever is on fox news in the morning. that could be dangerous for u.s. leadership. it's salvageable. if the president can begin to rely on some experts and begin to actually do the hard work to try to support america's role in the world, then we can make real progress on that. so far, the last year has shown just the opposite that it's changing positions, we're going to talk to north korea or it's a waste of time. he's undermining his own cabinet. if he doesn't shift that course, america's role in the world will be diminished to everyone's p peril. >> the book said trump would tell friends that him and kushner engineered the rise to power say iing at one point, quote, we got our man in power and gave a nod to the saudis to go after neighboring qatar when

they put it under that blockade. what are the implications of the close saudi-u.s. relationship to the region here? what impact does it have? >> i think this is more jared kushner's doing than it anyone else. he forged a bond with muhammad and this is unfortunate because i think it accounts for the. opposition to the iranian government to the opposition to the iranian nuclear deal because trump has decided he wants to bolster saudi arabia. we know a lot of saudi policies, particularly their foreign policies have been disastrous. the decision on qatar, which has basically destabilized the gulf cooperation council. many other actions he's taken have not been very good in terms of u.s. interests in the region or really even the stability of the region itself. this is concerning to me.

we will wait and see what trump is going to do about the iran nuclear deal. he has some important decisions to make in the upcoming days about whether to continue to waive nuclear-related sanctions. if he doesn't, the united states is out of the nuclear deal. we know what's been going on in iran. >> that will have a huge impact on the way things are playing out inside iran with the protests. thank you all. thank you for your time. >> thanks so much. still awe head, where equal pay for men and women is officially the law. plus immigration, infrastructure and the war on oip yoeds. is their agenda too ambitious for a midterm year? what about the democrats? our panel will discuss chances of taking over congress for 2018. stay with us. spending time with the grandkids... ♪ music >> tech: ...every minute counts. and you don't have time for a cracked windshield. that's why at safelite, we'll show you exactly when we'll be there.

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welcome back. time for the global check up. a look at the stories that are making headlines around the world. an explosion outside a subway station. the man is suffered fatality injuries. the $40,000 migrants faced jail time if they don't leave the contrary voluntarily. they are offering a $3500 payment to leave. many claim they are facing persecution and violence in their home countries. and a new law makes it illegal to pay a man for work more than a woman if she's doing

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we want to get rid of chain migration. it's very important and we want to get rid of the lot system. we want daca to happen. we want john cornyn from texas. we all want daca to happen. but we also want great security for our country. >> that's a lot of heads in the background nodding in graesmt. president trump laying out part of the agenda for 2018. he hosted members of his cabinet and congressional leaders at camp david this weekend. on the to-do list, da krarks the program that protect the undocumented immigrants from deportation. others include passing a budget by the january 19th dead line. and infrastructure plan and repealing obamacare. back with e me once again is "chicago sun-times" bureau chief lynn sweet. great to have you all with us. let me begin with lynn.

we saw a list of things to do. how realistic they are going to get anything accomplished being a midterm year and with the president's approval ratings being and "b" w the president's approval ratingsing being so low? >> well, there's not a one size fit all answer. let me go through, it is no one's favor to have a government shutdown. if you don't have a budget fix by january 19th. this makes this harder for republicans, it's a different environment. you have one more democratic senator, democratic senator warren and you have two republicans, mccain and cochran, who are not well, and may be missing votes if you don't have 60 votes in the senate you can't make a deal. this means that the bargaining chemistry is different as we go into this. but it's -- if there is a shutdown this year it is the republicans who are going to be blamed.

so that's the first thing to look at as we go into this very, very busy january. >> let me focus in on one of those issues, charlie. that is about immigration. because we heard the president basically saying no wall, no daca. and this morning on abc this week, tom cream echoed the same thing, while calling out a democrat dick durbin on his proposed dream act. >> durbin's dream act would cost $26 billion so he should reconsider who's making unreasonable costly demands if he's criticizing the president for requesting $18 billion to secure our southern border that creates such a huge magnet for illegal immigration and crime and drugs. >> so my question for you, charlie, is it possible that the attempted immigration reform actually lead to a government shutdown and what other issues like immigration could also lead us to this shutdown? >> first of all we'll get an answer very, very quickly.

you have the irresistible force meeting meeting the i have movable object. both are drawing lines in the sand. i will tell you if donald trump and the republicans give up on the d.r.e.a.m.er issue, there are -- their nativist base will revolt. however, the democratic base will not go for a spending bill that does not provide help for the d.r.e.a.m.ers. in a former political environment there's obviously a middle ground. there's obviously some compromise. but i think it's going to be incredibly difficult to achieve in this political agreement. >> so the theme being bipartisan here because we heard mitch mcconnell stressing the need for bipartisan during that press conference. listen to this. >> the 2018 will be a year of more bipartisan cooperation and the president's agenda much of which he just referred to.

are things that we believe will be a significant number of democrats interested in helping us accomplish. >> i think we'll go bipartisan. i think we'll have some great bipartisan bills but we need more republicans so that we can really get the rest of the make america great again agenda passed. >> will they court democrats to get things done here? >> that's right. they're going to try but if the tax bill is any indication, they're not going to work very hard to do it. in fact when you talk about infrastructure which a lot of republicans say this is bipartisan, bipartisan, yes, democrats want that also. that tax bill actually hurts a lot of states' ability to get infrastructure done and the federal government just nixed a tunnel between new york and new jersey. something that has been on -- you know, been discussed for decades and then all of a sudden that's just dead on arrival because of policy in washington,

d.c. so there's all this talk about bipartisanship but i don't think democrats have seen it. and with respect to daca, i think that the other commentators are absolutely right. i don't see as a democrat a whole lot of middle ground here. i know that republicans are going to hold this up. because they want to build a wall that'll take 20 years and billions of dollars to do. but we can actually save people's lives and families today and there's enough bipartisan support to do that. >> very quickly, can the democratic party afford to be a party of no? can they be seen as roadblocking everything on the republican agenda to get to the midterms or do they have to say yes on something? >> it can't a party of no, that's true. but they -- i think they do have to say yes and there is a -- >> where can they say yes? >> i think on some issues related to infrastructure and related to daca. but not throwing it all out. our base is going to be holding our accountable is very important. >> charlie, part of the camp david meeting was to discuss the midterm elections. democrats need 24 seats to take

back the house and only two to take the senate. what issues do republicans plan to campaign on to ensure that they keep the majority? what do you think they are going to have as their go-to issues to rile up the base? >> well, they think they're going to look at the economy. look your life is better than four years ago, the stock market is up, we just cut your taxes, we are going to be growing the gross domestic product at a faster rate than under the democrats. they are hoping that that is -- is the message. they're hoping to rile up their base with cultural issues by saying that look, we have repealed all the regulatory reforms. we're moving ahead on all of these things. and they're hoping that this is not a referendum on donald trump. of course, there's a huge flaw to the plan which is donald trump and the fact that he's still on twitter. >> i know, it will be interesting to see how the republican party is affected by steve bannon and by the president. lynn, you have a column in the "chicago sun-times" today, five

things to watch for for tonight in the golden globes. how much can we expect the political entertainment worlds to collide tonight? have. >> this is the intersection between the hollywood and the potomac. this is a political event. the only question is how much politics will be there. you have the intersection of, you know, seth meyers who going to be doing stuff about trump. we have a sexual harassment me too issue that's all political. i think what to look for, everybody, in the opening monologue, what will seth meyers say? i would go to the preshow and see if everyone is wearing black on the runway. >> it is going to be hollywood and washington tonight, center stage. great to have you with us. thank you very much for joining me this hour. i'll be back next sunday to break down the major stories of the week. reach out to me on social media. join my colleague kasie hunt at 7:00. but first, it's "meet the press." begins to change,

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this sunday, "fire and fury," a new book portrays the trump white house as dysfunctional, with a president described by his own staff as an idiot surrounded by clowns. a [ bleep ] fool with a staff that questioned his fitness for office and his mental stability. president trump reacts. >> i consider it a work of fiction. >> calling himself a very stable genius. >> i went to the best colleges, or college. >> and the white house pushes back hard.