how control is he at the end day. >> president obama did that. this is not an extraordinary moment. he should be doing it. today he revealed he didn't understand the details. >> breaking news, the president is doing his job. that does it for our hour, i'm micolle wallace. "mtp daily" starts right now. hi, chuck is that work, work, work, work. >> we are all busy working. >> if it's tuesday, it's lights, camera, legislate! tonight, the white house goes out of its way to showcase the president holding a big immigration meeting. but does the president actually have a position on immigration? >> what about a clean daca bill now. >> we have to do daca first. >> you are saying daca without security? are you talking about security as well. >> reporter: we will talk with senator jeff flake about what we saw and didn't see after the cameras left. plus new information about

how the russia investigation began. senate democrats release the full transcript on the dossier as the special counsel weighs an interview with the president. and the cost of defying president trump? steve bannon is out at breitbart. this is "mtp daily," and it starts right now. ♪ good evening. imtd' chuck todd here in washington. and welcome to "mtp daily." steve bannon is out at breitbart. fusing gps's ten hour testimony on the dossier is out as well. we will dive into both of those big stories in a very busy hour. we begin tonight with an unprecedented window into how this presidency is conducted. what the white house likely wanted us to see was the art of the deal president at work today. what we got was a window into why this presidency is often confusing, contradictory and

chaotic. the president seemingly took every contradictory position he has ever had on immigration and d.r.e.a.m.ers and it did it within an hour today during a bipartisan meeting with senate leaders at the white house. the most remarkable moment came when president trump appeared to give democrats everything they wanted arc clean bill of love for daca recipients with no wall and no strings attached. >> what about a clean daca bill now. >> we are going the come out with daca, do daca, and then we can start immediately on the phase two, which would be comprehensive. >> mr. president. >> do you -- >> i would love that. >> mr. president, you need to be clear. what senator feinstein is talking about, when we talk about daca, we don't want to be

back mere two years later. you have to have security. >> i think that's what she is saying. >> what do you think i'm saying? >> i think you are saying daca without security. >> mccarthy was basically trying to protect the president from a conservative mutiny. what later became clear is that the president didn't have any idea of what he was agreeing to because he didn't understand what a clean billment. he later told us what we thought a clean daca bill meant. >> >> to me a clean bill is a bill of daca, we take care of them and we also take care of security. >> for what it's worth that's not clean. clean is just daca. it is a little washington speak. president trump insisting he agreed to two totally contradictory things, this meeting explains a lot. president trump appeared to embrace a pathway to citizenship for the # 1 million undocumented

immigrants. >> i would vote for a path to citizenship, which isn't very easy for me, but i would do it just as an evident. but there is certain things that we have got the guarantee that we are going to do. >> that whole path is an incentive for people. it would be an incentive for people to work hard, do a good job. >> but in the same meeting the president also insisted he's going to deliver what his base wants. >> a lot of the people in this room want to see chain migration ended. we don't want the lottery system or the visa lottery system. we want it ended. >>? any agreement without the wall? >> no. there wouldn't be. >> are you confused? ultimately you may be asking yourself what are the president's positions? does he have a red line in any of this. his answer towards the end of this meeting was in all seriousness, whatever you need them to be. >> my positions are going to be what the people in this room come up with. if they come to we with things

that i'm not in love with, i'm going to do it, because i respect them. >> there you go. folks, the people in the room are going to spook a lot of conservatives because the party's most prominent immigration hardliners were not in that room. and some conservative commentators are already freaking out. in the enit seems this was a coordinated of the by gop leaders to steer the president back on track after the president left the room. listen. >> during the closed door session the leadership agreed to negotiate and narrow the focus to four issues, border security, chain migration, visa lottery, and daca. >> we will continue the meeting but we are only going to focus on four topics. daca, border security, chain migration, and the lottery. >> the first is daca. the second is border security. the third is chain migration. and the fourth is the visa lottery system. >> interestingly, no mention of the word wall, for what it's worth. democratic leadership though says they didn't agree to any of

that. joining me now is senator jeff flake of arizona he was one of the leaders in that meeting with the president. maybe he can tell us what happened of a the cameras left the room. senator flake, what a day? >> it was. it was. i never thought i would have a day when the president talked about bringing earmarks back and joe arpaio decided to get in the senate race. some days you have just got to stay in bed. >> you can't pull the covers over your head right now. let's get to the daca situation. i will be honest, a lot of us are are confused who have watched this, who have done reporting on this. what are you taking a way from this meeting? what is real here? has the president agreed to some sort of daca compromise or not? >> frankly i went into the meeting with low expectations because it was such a large number of people, 22. and you really can't negotiate with that large of a group. what i wanted to see was a commitment to do daca without a broad list of issues that belong

more in comprehensive reform. i do think we got that. obviously, this is going to be tough just to negotiate the daca portion as well as a few border security elements. but it's completely impossible to do a big comprehensive list bike the white house released to us just a couple of days ago as these must-have items. i'm glad they seem to have pulled back from that. that alone was worth night to hear right after, it seals headache there is a he is innage memo that went out. everybody buttoned up. they all said the same thing, we will focus on four things, daca, border security, chain migration and the visa lottery. i didn't hear the word wall. intentional? >> i think that was a important part of the meeting. the president went further than he has before in explaining what the word wall means. he said it a number of times

both when the cameras were there, and afterwards. he said we are not talking about a 2,000 mile wall. there are rivers and mountains that preclude a wall from being built. you don't need it. and the wall isn't so much as wall as it is a fence. we have walls on the southern border that we have been removing and putting fences in their place. it's effective. that's extremely useful for people to see that we are talking about a wall system that includes barriers, technology, and manpower, and not a big opaque 2,000-mile wall. so that -- and if you look at what the president asked for in this year's budget it was $1.6 billion, which i think would provide for about 74 miles of fence and additional years would continue to build out and replace fence. but that's not much than this monolithic wall that everybody

envisions. >> do you take this away meaning if the bore door security they asked for, the ask that the president is for this more reasonable definition of a barrier rather than a full-fledged wall, does that mean you are more inclined to support something like that in a daca compromise? >> it depend how it's put forward. some said it would cost $18 billion over ten years. some said we have to come up with the money right now for that. there is no way in a the house and the senate is going to do that. but to take what the president's request was for this fiscal year, then that i think is doable. if you combine that with a couple of the other items the president talked about, visa lottery, yeah, we need to fix that. we can, perhaps combining that with temporary protected status or reallocation of some visas as well as talking about chain migration as it relates to the population that we are dealing with here. i think that those things are doable. and that kind of reflects some of the negotiations that we have been having in the bipartisan

group. >> you seem to hinted at it, but i'm curious, let me directly ask you, if to get democratic support in ending chain migration do you see them reinstating some protective status for el salvadorans and hondurans, expiring soon, el salvadorans issics piring now. >> that wouldn't be connected with the chain parliament it may be connected with the diversity visa part. >> gotcha. >> diversity a. we have 50,000 visas given out in a lottery system. it's not a good system. we in the gang of eight got rid of that. we could reverse some visas for some people protected by tps. that's what i'm suggesting is a possible deal there. >> can you really come up with a compromise if none -- let's be realistic. steve king wasn't in the room, mark mad meadows wasn't in that

room. i'm sure everybody in the room is glad some of the hardliners weren't in there because it would have been ugly in the debate. but how do you get anything passed if their view isn't represented. >> i wouldn't expect them to accept the final package. last time, we didn't aet get all the republicans. >> okay. but is the president okay with that? >> i think so. i think he's going to have to be. anything that can get 60 votes in the senate will drop off a couple of republicans. i think that's the nature of legislating. >> mitch mcconnell reiterated that daca was not going to be part of the budget bill that he wants to deal with next week. >> right. >> is that firm? do you believe that's a firm plan there? or is he just speaking for republicans right now? >> well, i think that that's his preferred option.

i would rather have it part of the spending deal. i know democrats would. so i think that remains to be seen, but that's certainly his preferred option. >> you have not been shy about your criticism of this president and how he carries himself in office. >> right. >> you have even called him at one point an existential threat to democracy. this topic has been out there a lot over the last week thanks somewhat to the book, the infamous book by michael wolff, "fire and fury: inside the trump whitehouse," the president's own stable genius comments. what did you observe today? and do you still stand by the comment he is still an existential threat? >> well, when i was saying that n my book and in previous comments since i'm talking about some of the position nas the president has taken -- position nas the president has taken. i'm very concerned and i will be speaking more about this in the coming days on the senate floor about the president's relationship with truth and this labeling of fake news, when you

call fake things real and real things fake what you do is give confident the dictators worldwide who want to label label protests or their opposition as fake news. >> right. >> so i think that's tremendously damaging. but i'm not stating that in terms that michael wolff did in the book. i'm just saying the positions that he has taken. >> what do you say to those that say, you know, you talk tough but you still side with things that you agree with, and you are enabling him? you are not going to change him if you keep doing that. what do you say to those critics? >> the flip said side of that is to say i ought to vote against what the president wants out of despite because i disagree with him on a number of thing. i don't want to do that. i support the president when i think he is right and try to nudge him in a direction that i think he ought to go. and i will oppose him and stand up when i believe he is wrong. i think i have done all three. >> speaking of opposition, at

the start you tweeted i'm not for joe arpaio, and i think you said, you know, put it down or mark it down for us. but what does the joe arpaio candidacy, what concerns you the most about his candidacy for your senate seat? >> i would be more concerned if i felt he was in it for the long haul. i don't think he is. there hasn't been one election cycle since the early '90s where joe arpaio hasn't said that he was thinking of running statewide. >> you are not taking this seriously? >> no. i don't think. i don't think he is in it for the long haul. i think this time next month he won't be in the race. >> if he somehow became the nominee would you end up what you ended up doing in alabama and basically support the democrat? >> i cannot see supporting joe arpaio. i don't think he will get that far though, i really don't. >> and i want to ask you what's going on with the cuban diplomats. >> right. >> there seems to be a

disagreement among some of you that have looked into this issue about whether our diplomats were attacked in some sort of sonic way or not. seems like senator rubio believes so. you have some doubts. what do we know? what done we know? what do we need to know more of. >> all we know definitively is that the fbi has been to cuba four times and has investigated this extensively. their preliminary report is that while there was some event that certainly effected some people there is no evidence at all that it was in a direct -- a directed attack by the cuban government or someone else. and my concern is, you know, we are going into a critical period in cuba where we are going to have a transition where somebody other than a castro is going to lead that government and we are going blind. we have a skeletal staff at the embassy now and we need to staff up. we need to be there, and not divorced from reality there.

>> all right, senator flake, we had a lot that sort of fit right in your wheel house today. perfect timing. i'm glad you didn't pull the covers over your head and stay in bed today. i appreciate that. >> thank you. >> senator, appreciate it. coming up, "fire and fury: inside the trump whitehouse" forces steve bannon out. the president said banno had lost his mind. how he's lost his job. i realize that ah, that $100k is not exactly a fortune.

well, a 103 yeah, 103. well, let me ask you guys. how long did it take you two to save that? a long time. then it's a fortune. well, i'm sure you talk to people all the time who think $100k is just pocket change. right now we're just talking to you. i told you we had a fortune. yes, you did. getting closer to your investment goals starts with a conversation. schedule a complimentary goal planning session today.

welcome back. call it a dramatic case of di defiance. feinstein released the full transcript of glen simpson's testimony to the senate judiciary committee. he is the cofounder of fusion gps, the research firm behind the so-called trump dossier that examined his alleged ties to russian businessmen. it is a major break from committee chair senator chuck

grassley, who says feinstein is putting the integrity of the investigation at risk. feinstein says it was the only way to set the record straight. ken delaney has been combing through 300-page transcript. he will join me at the bottom of the hour with these revelations and figure out what have we learned from this testimony. we will be back in 60 seconds.

welcome back to "mtp daily." tonight's panel, bill crystal, aaron guarin, and eugene robinson. welcome, all. ann, we have done a lot of white house beat reporting in the past. we don't normally see this president that long in front of the public. and it certainly afterwards seemed like it was more intentional than accidental. >> it clearly was intentional. originally the fact that he was having this meeting was on the schedule but there was no press

component. not only did there become a press component, but it was a 55-minute one. in addition to that being unusual on its face the fact that there was actual negotiation going on there, and i mean the senators at first you saw them kind of looking around like what did. >> they didn't know. >> what do we do here. and then jumping in. >> because you are not sure if it is a trap. you are at the white -- hate to say it, are we being set up. >> republicans i think also felt uncomfortable. some democrats clearly thought they might be walking into something. but republicans appeared no more comfortable. and then there is dianne feinstein thinking now is my chance and she jumps in and she appears to get the president to agree to something that not only he had not agreed to specifically about, but about half of the republicans in the room were dead set against. or maybe more than half. so that was very telling. >> have we checked with ann

coulter who i think provides a daily reminder of the president and his promise on the wall? is she okay. >> some of the immigration hawks are unhappy. that was a priceless moment when kevin mccarthy, the house minority leader, been to a million negotiations, when the president seems to be agreeing with senator feinstein, fine, let's have a clean daca bill. by that of course you mean we are going to have security, ie the wall. oh, yeah, the wall, it was my basis for the wauchl it was an astonishing moment. i have been told that the president -- that is one thing he says in private. when he seemed at one point months ago to back off from the wall as he put it my base went crazy. he need the fig leaf of quote the wall. >> it seems he keeps trying to see how far can he walk back from it. trying the figure out what's the most i can walk back on it

without them totally revolting. >> right, because he doesn't have an ideology. whatever they come up with, right, i will sign it. that was -- salk about something that freaked the republicans out, right? and especially the republicans who were not in that room, the real hard liners on immigration. and so totally freaked them out. during the course of that 55 minutes, the president took most conceivable positions on immigration, most that you could think of, that the three of us could think of, he took at some point. >> i get the sense that on daca what we are hearing is here's a president who has been hearing from a lot of business leaders ecstatic about the tax bill who i have no doubt in their mind, they are also very much not wanting to see hardline immigration policy coming from him either. something tells me that in his conversations with these folks while they are congratsing him on that they are bending his ear on this because he is changing

his tune. >> yes, i believe that's good intuition, i mean he also addressed a group of farmers yesterday who similarly are not hard line -- >> probably getting an earful, hey, if you do this, whether it's on the el salvadoran decision, you are costing us labor and money. >> remember, he himself has taken what appeared to be, you know, pretty wide and generous views on daca before. specifically on the daca issue. and i think he's trying to find a way that he can get back to that. i mean, a bill of love, right? this is a bill of love. >> he was never associated with the fights for immigration which have been going on for a decade. there were plenty of people on all sides who made their names, he distinguishes himself from bush and rubio and the republican field, he is popular

with the republican base, suddenly he is mr. mexican rapist, muslim ban, and then he decided okay, hey, the the wall. and no one else was willing to go there. he married immigrants. >> here's steve king. a hard liner. >> i'm not going to the white house. there won't be anybody at the white house that opposes amnesty. i think the president shares the view with the people he is going to be discussing this with today and it's not the view he had during the campaign. but if he grants daca amnesty then that's off the table and he will take rank with maybe the same mistake that ronald reagan made which was signing the amnesty act in 1986. >> we checked on ann coulter and she said this, nothing michael wolff could say about donald trump could hurt him as much as the daca love fest right now. >> what i'm hearing from her on

twitter is the president that we elected to give us a wall and no amnesty is going to give us amnesty and no wall. >> if you put your faith in demagogues you are going to be disappointed. he didn't believe any of it. trade is the issue, if you think about it, 20, 30 years he has believed on. >> in his core. >> immigration, total demagoguery. it will be amusing if the people who put their faith in them get betrayed. >> meks doe was supposed to pay for the wall. i did not hear that mentioned today. >> you had to bring that up. another question though is who is going to blink? is there going to be government shutdown over this or not? it is going to be the democrats who ban together or the republicans. listen to jon tester. >> could you vote for money for the wall if that's what the administration wants? >> what i'll vote for is the way

we can keep the security at the border in the best possible way. >> sound like you are open to it? >> absolutely i'm open to all solutions. >> jon tester up in 2018 in a red state. this is the group i have been wondering about. ann, that tells me that democrats, dhuk schumer might not be able to keep them all together if the wall is truly a non-starter to the base. >> then we get back to the semantics, what is the wall. >> exactly. >> today it sounded like the wall equals border security. we have been talking about bore sker security as a central tenet of any immigration deal for for ten years, more, right, and democrats actually have gone along with it. to your question of who is going to blink, i think maybe it will be whose version of the words get -- >> the words. >> i think we may already today

be at the point where one person's wall is another person's fence. >> i guess. but i feel like we have been here before. when the chuck and nancy deal was struck it looked like this daca thing is going to happen. then the base spoke and he freaked out and he backed off. do you think after tonight if sean handity unloads on him, maybe he won't, he backs out. >> no, because i think sean hannity will rarkszallize on him rather than unloading on him. the president will sign a immigration deal that has more democratic support than republican support. up ahead arc major revelation today in the russia investigation. we now know what the man behind the dossier told the senate and what he told the fbi. for mom,

the nation's largest senior living referral service. for the past five years, i've spoken with hundreds of families and visited senior care communities around the country and i've got to tell you, today's senior livingnd communities are better than tever.ou, today's senior living communities are better than ever. these days, there are amazing amenities like movie theaters, texercise rooms and swimmingg pools, public cafes, bars and, bistros. exercise rooms and swimming pools, public cafes, bars and bistros. even pet care services. and nobody understands your options like the advisors at a place for mom.

these are local, expert advisors that will partner with you to find the perfect place and determine the right level of care. whether that's just a helping hand or fulltime memory care. best of all it's a free service. there's never any cost to you. senior living has never been better. and there's never been an easier way to get great advice. call today. a place for mom. you know your family. we know senior living. a place for mom. you know your family. we know senior living. together we'll make the right choice. it's ok that everyone ignores it's fine. drive. because i get a safe driving bonus check every six months i'm accident free. and i don't share it with mom! right, mom? righttt. safe driving bonus checks. only from allstate. switching to allstate is worth it.

up ahead, if president trump can win, why not oprah. why not kanye, why not kid rock? why i'm obsessed with celebrities running for public office or at least saying it enough that they get attention for it. first the market wrap. >> another record day on wall street with the major indexes hitting highs on investor optimism and ahead of quarterly earnings reports. the dow gaining 103 points testimony s&p is having the best start of the year since 1987 adding three points, hitting an all-time high. the nasdaq climbing six points

higher of the rt at that's stock rose 3% after reporting same store sales growth for the holiday season. uber agreed the pay up to $3 million to settle with more than 2400 drivers in new york who accused the company of docking excessive fees from their fares. that's it from cnbc, first in business worldwide. >> 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. with a replacement you can trust. all done sir. >> grandpa: looks great! >> tech: thanks for choosing safelite. >> grandpa: thank you! >> child: bye! >> tech: bye! saving you time... so you can keep saving the world. >> kids: ♪ safelite repair, safelite replace ♪

welcome back. significant details today in the russia investigation. we are hearing from the man behind from trump dossier in his own words. we now know what glen simpson, the founder of the firm gps that that commissioned the dossier told investigators. what they were doing, how they carried out their investigation, what u.s. authorities knew when as far as they were concerned. dianne feinstein released the transcript of the simpson testimony today against the wishes of a republican counter-part, the chairman of the committee, chuck grassley.

the unilateral move comes days after grassley without full committee support raised the possibility of criminal charges against christopher steele the author of the dossier. the democratic senator chris coops called the it the end of the committee's bipartisan cooperation on the investigate of the russia issue. joining me now, ken delaney. your job today for the network was to go through the simpson testimony and find the stuff that we didn't know that we need to know that help us understand this better. so the biggest thing you learned from this testimony. go. >> was that christopher steele, the former british intelligence operative who was doing this research with his russian sources sat down with his russian contact in rome in september to debrief and explain what he had found. he believed that donald trump was enthralled in russian

intelligence and it was involved in the trump campaign. this is not proven but what he thought. >> what steele thought by september of 2016. he passed it along to the fbi. they had already heard something along these ins loo. they knew that from australians. george papadopoulos knew that the russians had e-mails long before. steele felt disillusions and didn't think the fbi was taking him seriously. >> the other item i wanted to ask you about, he went to the fbi in june or july? >> yes. i had known that. he first reached out to them in july. apparently he didn't have a full deprevious brief with haddis friend until september. this whole thing demystifies a shadowy saga here.

the opposition research firm. he is a reporter. he approached it like you would. he looked at donald trump, saw shady businessmen around donald trump. he started compiling interesting business transactions. >> one thing i found interesting was the way simpson positioned his -- how he was looking at it d he was purely looking at this as an opposition research assignment. >> that's right. >> and it's steele that says this is bigger than that, i have to go to the fbi. >> that's right. >> simply didn't realize it seems the seriousness of what he had. >> steele says i am a security professional. i am a british subject, allies are the americans. i'm deeply concerned that potentially the next president could be compromised by our adversary. i have a duty to warn. that's why he reached out to the fbi. >> the other thing, there was clearly some partisan style questioning of him had. who is a democrat, this is a democratic firm, you are this,

this, this, none of which this firm is. >> they were fired first by republicans. then democrats took over the case. they were also working for a russian oligarch. they are guns for hire. they will work for whoever pays them. >> that's what it sounds like. >> but they have a good reputation, their facts speak for themselves and they are standing behind their work. >> dianne feinstein appears to be retaliating, if you will for what she thought was -- what chuck grassley and lindsey graham did before the weekend some of which senator graham and i went through a lot on sunday on meet the press. but the criminal -- the fact that they filed a criminal suggestion, i -- suggested there should be a criminal inquiry or referral to the justice department on christopher steele. >> they did that unilaterally. two republicans, without consulting the democrats. the democrats were furious that happened. >> this is the revenge?

>> feinstein hasn't said that. but you know she is an institutionalist, she doesn't take steps like this lightly. unilaterally releasing this transcript is a big deal. and it it's blown things up. >> the house intelligence investigation is shot because they are not working together. now the senate jish rather investigation looks like it's shot now. so the only one left where there seems to be buy in still is senator. >> so far he has stood firm. he is working with mark warner. he is not getting everything he wants but they have this relationship and trust so far. stay tuned. >> all right, ken delaney, it is in a day of improbable news, this one was one where we were like oh, how about that. anyway, ken, lots of developments to keep track of. thank you sir, appreciate it. coming up, the high price of defying the president.

it just cost steve bannon a job.

welcome back. tonight i'm obsessed with what's behind the democrats' giddiness over oprah winfrey and the possibly that she might perhaps consider under certain circumstances the possibility of thinking about whether maybe she would ponder the idea of discussing whether there is any chance she might some day consent to a discussion about the option, one of many for her,

of running for president. maybe. let's all agree, her speech sunday night was a tour dee force. hard stop. perhaps no one in america is better at touching people emotionally than oprah. obviously a one of a kind talent and person. but this is not the first time democrats have looked at their likely candidates for president in a cycle coming up and thought there has to be someone better out there. there has to be. or celebrity w

haven't even thought up, taylor swift. none of this is to deny the unique talents of the enormously 50ed oprah winfrey but the frenzy over her possible possible candidatesy maybe says less about her than it does about the democrats because they haven't yet figured out how to take on or compare themselves to donald trump.

your brain changes as you get older. but prevagen helps your brain with an ingredient originally discovered... in jellyfish. in clinical trials, prevagen has been shown to improve short-term memory. prevagen. the name to remember.

and when youod sugar is a replace one meal... choices. ...or snack a day with glucerna... ...made with carbsteady... ...to help minimize blood sugar spikes... ...you can really feel it. now with 30% less carbs and sugars. glucerna. time for the lid. panel is back. ann, and steve. steve bannon lost his job with the white house, lost his job with breitbart which means he hos his media vehicle, the major financial backer and the mersers, his connection to the white house, he has lost races is he far. he is not the spokesperson for the trump movement anymore. and he says hey i'm okay i'm

joust going to be a strategist now not a media person. and you point out he also lost his sirious xm show. steve bannon, will we be talking about him as much in november of this year, bill crystal? >> no. i think it's striking how much the result of the alabama race mattered. if romney had won in alabama, suddenly, bannon would have been the guy who pushed him across the finish line despite, you know, terrible charges against him. suddenly the notion of bannon backed primary challengers would be there, trump would not have felt detrade by bannon but the opposite. that 1.5% percentage points could have been a defining moment not just for bannon, but since a ban onite for trump is trump. sorry.

>> letting you know how wrong you are, bill crystal. >> it might have been a defining moment for the republican party. the party without steve bannon, without a figurehead without someone directing the insurrection is a happier republican party establishment. >> yeah, but joe arpaio, jeff flake doesn't buy the candidacy. he does this, pulls back. except before arpaio had another job. right now he doesn't have a job. running for office might be his job. this is going to test the president when it comes to an arpaio candidacy. >> absolutely. trump made good on the promise he made, which infuriate a lot of people that he would pardon arpaio. and now he is sort of on the hook. right? >> right. >> if he doesn't back an arpaio candidacy in full throat then i will be accused by arpaio's

considerable constituency. >> right. >> of walking away from him. >> right now in arizona kelli ward who is a trumpy candidate is running ahead in the polls of martha mcsally who is the favorite of polls the opponent. on the one hand, the public lit and money bannon brought is a big deal, but it just takes on one or two to win in march and suddenly the whole accused gets lit again. >> joe arpaio being the nominee is roy mooreesque in its impact nationally on the republican party and on the hispanic voters. >> totally. this is a bhman who has been fod in criminal contempt by a federal judge, everybody -- he's famous. everybody knows what kind of jail he ran. everybody knows his positions. he is the ultimate sort of i was

going to say hard liner, but beyond hard liner, it's an insult to hard liners. >> but it feels like hadarpaioc would have been a bigger winner. >> stleclearly clearly trurnlg the sting off t the roy moore l. he got forced to back a candidate, remember he said maybe i made the wrong choice. >> he didn't feel comfortable at either decision. >> and he criticized bannon after the fact for having run a bad campaign and forced a bad candidate forward. but there is no greater proof i think that the white house is

trying to rinse a little bit of bannon out than the fact that they announced today that trump is going to davos. >> that is true. you're right, that is the explanation point. >> wouldn't that just make steve bannon's head explode? >> however, bannon would be the next guy to say yeah, i'll come and do a panel there. because he wants to be able to say he went into the belly of the beast. >> and he needs a place go now. >> i want to switch gears. chuck grassley and dianne feinstein are in a senate feud. it's clear she is angry about the christopher steele decision by lindsey graham and chuck grassley and then this released today. bill, we can have a debate about whose side are you on this, the fact of the matter is that they are not working together, it is the investigation that loses. >> yeah, and i think it gets to the thing we discussed before, trump and trumpism and reaction to trumpism is putting a lot of pressure on the institutions of

washington. and my general line of the first year of trump has been the institutions have held up pretty well. the rule of law, the justice department, people -- military. it's not being ruined by donald trump as president. but i think here we see the pressure. serious senators institutionalists as ken said. >> grassley and feinstein, we're not talking about ex-house members coming in and messing with the senate. >> yeah, sort of blowing up the process. okay, it's a weird investigation, but it is a precedent. and it is a moment where this congress is not working the way it should be. >> the house investigation is just not serious. no matter what they try because they don't even -- now you have the senate judiciary. i kind of think half of congress is throwing up their hands and saying it is in mule leellemuel anyway. >> maybe you still have senate intel as a credible investigation. but that is all. >> what happens when trump fires

mueller? this is related, right? because nothing -- it's all partisanship. >> is that's what it feels like. and that helps trump. i believe trump does not want to testify before mueller. certainly wants to discredit him, may want to fire him. so this whole dissolution of all the settle patterns and sense of responsibility that we can't just do what we want, that helps trump i think. >> it is amazing that they have -- he can't say he hasn't made progress in muddying the waters in the russia investigation. just simply look what the house guys have done on his behalf and now even what lindsey graham and chuck grassley have done. >> absolutely. and right now obviously the white house would like to play it that they won't comment officially on whether or not that there is talk of a discussion of an interview of the president. i mean, they have been arguing for weeks now that this is coming to an end and typically

an interview with a principal figure signifies that things are coming to an end. that may be the best way they can frame this now. >> i will be shocked if in president sits down with mueller. >> do you think it will be like a written thing? >> i think we could have months and months and months of litigation. >> i don't think mueller will take a written statement. >> that i agree with. if you've seen him do depositions, and criminivil, no criminal. up ahead, why "fire and fury" book sales are heating up, and not just for michael wolff. when you say you need

a heart transplant... that's a whole different ballgame. i was in shock. i am very proud of the development of drugs that can prevent the rejection and prevent the recurrence of the original disease. i never felt i was going to die. we know so much about transplantation. and we're living longer. you cannot help but be inspired by the opportunities that a transplant would offer. my donor's mom says "you were meant to carry his story".

in case you missed it, michael wolff's new book is flying off the shelves. but this srnt thaven't the only called "fire and fury," there is also this one about bombing of germany. this is what shows unsecond on amazon. it is not clear how many copies amazon somd of this "fire and fury" in the past week, but they have now sold all of them because this "fire and fury" is now temporarily out of stock. randall hampson who wrote the other book tweeted over the weekend, incredibly sales of my book have increased. will i owe a larger royalty check to bannon and trump? he said that he is, quote,

devout critic of trump and that for a time his book cracked the top 100 on three separate amazon best seller lists. and the third thing that shows up in a search of fire and furey, fury of fire. so remember to click carefully. that is all we have tonight. the beat with ari melber starts right now. good to see you back in the saddle. >> great to be back and i law enforcement good drag on story. >> half dragon. it is season ten of "game of thrones." >> chuck todd, thank you very much. we begin with breaking news. steve bannon is out at breitbart is this is also a busy news day, a potential breakthrough in the russia probe, transcripts detailed from a hearing with, yes, the now famous firm behind the trump russia dossier are out tonight and russian blackmail came up. also there is a former trump campaign adviser live here o