michael schmidt, the fact that we hear more about the obstruction than the collusion, did that mean anything in terms of what robert mueller is up to. >> we have to remember of the two things with the president there is more things in the bucket of obstruction to look at. there is not a ton that we know about the president's connections to russia. but on that side, there is so many people to look at. >> and people with lawyers. >> and white house officials that need to talk to mueller about stuff that happened while he was president. >> thank you so much. and that does it for our hour. i'm nicolle wallace, "mtp daily" starts right now. >> we don't know what we don't know. >> the known unknowns. >> there it is. it is the mueller way too. if it is wednesday, it's the president versus the fbi. >> tonight the president's scoreched earth campaign against the fbi. why some republicans are

circling the wagons with conspiracy theories. >> when struck and page described the secret society, that doesn't surprise me. >> and why did he wait two days to tell investigators. >> and one the most interesting man in politics might be about to prove our point again. this is "mtp daily" and it starts right now. ♪ ♪ good evening. i'm chuck todd here in washington. welcome to "mtp daily." trump won the popular vote. obama was born in kenya. ted ted cruz's father was involved in the kennedy assassination and the nod is state. you are called a conspiracy theorist or the president of the united states. the president attempt to destroy the fbi credibility on the

russia probe and the elected republicans who appear to be helping him do it and frankly in some cases you would think know better. mr. trump fired the fbi director last year after allegedly asking him to pledge his loyalty. and as the wash post now reports, that he then quickly summoned the fbi acting director andrew mccabe to ask him who he voted for in the 2016 election and expressing his wife's political affiliation and to make k -- mccake and then he smeared mccabe who is a 20 year respected veteran. mccabe is going to retire after republicans followed the president's lead by appreciating him to go and hammering constantly in closed door interviews. that kind of smear campaign against the fbi leadership and that kind of willingness to embrace the president's conspiracy theories has gone off the rails. and it has gone off the rails with the help of elected republicans who i think we all thought should know better. here is one of them.

>> we have an informant that is talking about a group that were holding secret meetings off site. there is so much smoke here, so much -- >> let's stop there. a secret society. a secret meetings off side of the justice department? >> correct. >> and you have an informant saying that. >> yes. this is -- this is bias potentially corruption at the highest level of the fbi. robert mueller used to run the fbi. >> senator johnson has spent the better part of the day trying to explain those comments. he said the secret society language comes from those text messages between a high level fbi agent on mueller's team who is no longer there and a colleague he was having an affair with. the fbi can't locate six months worth of those messages which is sparking another round of conspiracy theories. >> these messages run from about the time that the russia-trump investigation started at the fbi and run to the day before

special -- independent counsel mueller was appointed. there is no coincidence. >> there what is missing is important but what is there is important. it is manifest bias not just against trump, but against his kids, against his business interests. >> and the attacks on the fbi don't stop there. they are calling for the release avenue memo that one of its own hardliners wrote. house intelligence committee chair devin nunez who recused himself from the russian probe over incorporate coordination with the white house and put together a classified memo. it alleges -- they won't release it so i haven't read it and neither has the justice department but the president's allies had and then they want it to be released and then when people asked, no, you can't read it but it says it proves everything. >> i'm here to tell all of america tonight that i am shocked to read exactly what has

taken place. i would think that it would never happen in a country that loves free -- freedom and democracy like this country. >> what i read today in that classified briefing room is as bad as i thought it was. >> you are describing the very elements of a palace coup and after we reviewed the intelligence information today it is abundantly clear that the entire mueller investigation is a lie, built on a foundation of corruption. >> again, they're talking about a memo written by devin nunez. so i hold in my hand -- sorry -- all of this to protect the president from a russia probe that has metastasized on this white house. it is no longer just about collusion, it is about alleged obstruction, lying to the fbi, working for foreign governments and money laundering. president is facing serious allegations that he tried to corruption this investigation and his response to those allegations is to corrupt the entire justice department with help from allies in the gop

which used to call itself the law and order party. folks, the point isn't to enindict the entire republican caucus. i'm talking about a small but loud group of republicans, not like mitch mcconnell and paul ryan. but you could argue that their silence is a way of being complicit in this destruction of the fbi credibility. but we should know the republicans don't have a monopoly on criticizing the fbi. six months ago harry reid said there was evidence comey had broken the law and he had done more damage to the fbi than j. edgar hoover but this trumps anything we've seen before. joined by now by chuck rosenberg. and welcome to the show. >> thank you. >> so plet -- let me ask you this. what is moral like in the fbi right now. >> well there is two morals in the fbi. one is that these men and women are mission oriented and mission focused. and i mean that sincerely.

they care about helping victims of financial fraud or finding missing children. that fbi is fine. there is another fbi that listened every day to the drum beat and that hurts. people join the fbi because they believe in what it stands for, fidelity, bravery and integrity, but to have that sort of undermined by the leadership is a difficult thing to listen to every day, chuck. >> what do you make of the text messages? are you disturbed by any of it? >> look, i know those two folks. they are good people. i think they exhibited bad judgment. good people sometimes exhibit bad judgment. and the problem with the text messages of course is that it lends an appearance of impropriety. when robert mueller found out about that, he removed that special agent from his team. that is exactly what he should do. >> let's talk about the issue of political bias. what that means. what are the rules in the fbi? if you join the fbi, does your spouse no longer able to express

a political opinion or work in pa partis partisan politics. >> there is this thing out there called the first amendment and it applies to the fbi and everyone. what you try and do, and i did this for many years, keep those views out of your work. i was a federal prosecutor for a long time, chuck. i literally didn't know how other people in my office thought about politics, why didn't i know that? we didn't talk about it. >> you had a no politics -- what are the parameters? from everything we understand when she announced -- when andy mccabe's wife decided to run for office, he implemented -- he made some decisions about what he could work on and what he couldn't. >> that's right. >> was that standard policy or was that just -- a decision he made on his own. >> there is an ethic's out and andy sought the guidance and she suggested to him, and knowing andy as well as i do, i'm sure he would have done it any way

that he wall off from certain public corruption cases in virginia. at the time he wasn't the deputy -- he wasn't the deputy director. >> just in his washington field office. >> in his washington field office so he walled off from any case that might even come close to his wife's political activities. >> as somebody who worked as a u.s. attorney, is the president's public comments about andrew mccabe, does it actually strengthen a case of obstruction of justice if robert mueller is trying to make it based on his motivation for removing comey and things like that? does that -- is that actual circumstantial evidence that if you were to try him for this, you could introduce? >> it might. sure. you could see the argument right in your question, chuck. if you are trying to undermine the people who are investigating you, you are trying to undermine the institution in charge of the investigation, then, sure, that smacks of obstruction. >> we seem to know a lot about

what mueller may or may not be focusing on -- when it comes to obstruction of justice. i think it is leading to this assumption that it is the larger part of his investigation. based on what you know, what can you say the scope of what the -- the obstruction of justice charge versus everything else he's looking at? >> so there is a unknown there. the obstruction seems relatively easy. we can understand it. in fact, we can read it. >> is that why we know so much about it. because it is a beginning and middle and end already. >> it is a more discrete act. the russia interference piece is much more complex and nuance and much more layers and we don't have the same sort of visibility because that work is being done on the counter intelligence side. so two different pieces. one that seems relatively discrete and one that seems quite large and in what a morphous. >> if you were asked to come back to the fbi and say, look, and the fact -- i brought up that harry reid stuff. right now it is partisan trump

supporters going after thein -- the integrity of the fbi. how does the fbi recover from this? what would you do? what you would recommend. >> implicit is that the fbi is reeling from this. i believe in all my heart, chuck, that the fbi is fine. they are awesome. but they are not perfect. and those are two very different things. the coin of the realm for the fbi is that when it is in the field, when it is looking for a missing child, or working a financial fraud case or a public corruption case, is that it has to be believed. information is the -- is what they try to get and they get it when people believe they're credible and faithful and honest. as long as that holds, as long as that dam holds, they are okay. and my sense is that they're okay. but the attacks don't help. >> how long -- you could argue it took the fbi how long to recover from j he had guard hoover. >> it took a while. >> is this as bad? >> time will tell. i'm not trying to be

poliana-ish. this is bad. i don't believe it is fatal. i tend to be recklessly optimistic and i am so here. because the fbi has been around for 109 years. these attacks are sort of a small, small fraction of that tenure. >> chuck rosenberg former justice department official, fbi official, got a lot of titles there. >> can't keep a job. >> fair enough. good to have you with us. >> thank you. i'm joined now by msnbc political analyst, hugh hewitt. he is has a radio show. mr. hewitt, welcome, sir. >> thank you, chuck. >> you -- you've hosted quite a bit of these lawmakers making this case that there is -- that there are a lot of questions about the fbi's investigation. why not wait for the inspector general to do its job before muddying the waters here as badly as some in the house

republican caucus want to muddy it? >> i've talked mostly to senators. 11 of them over two days, including today, dan sullivan of alaska and cory gardner of color and pat toomey of pennsylvania. four very responsible and all of whom want a dig deep investigation into the bureau concerning the text messages. they are willing to wait and see what comes up with. but dan sullivan was pointed, the fbi and the d.o.j. took down ted stevens in a corrupt prosecution in alaska and he has no -- no hesitation to believe that a few bad actors in the bureau or the d.o.j. can take it rogue. i personally think the republicans in the house are overselling the nunez report. they ought to lay back and put it out in two weeks and see what is in it but i would not over-promise and i would continue to say leave special counsel mueller alone. but i'll ask you -- it reminds me so much of spiro agnew in

1973 where a u.s. attorney investigated him for 11 months and then one day he resigns because of tax evasion charges and gives up his office in order to avoid prosecution. i don't think you can prosecute the president of the united states. i don't believe it is constitutional to indict him but i think mueller might be working along those lines. >> let me ask you about attacked on andrew mccabe. because i feel as if -- i feel as if we've crossed a line here that we're never going to get back. does this mean that anybody who works in government suddenly everybody in their life contributes to whether they are biased about something? do you see -- >> i draw that line. >> and this is on andrew mckay based on what his wife did and is over the top and a new level of absurdity in this town. >> i draw the line at what your spouse does has anything to do with what you do. but i think it is appropriate for the president of the united states to ask his senior

political apointies in the unitary executive that we have whether or not they could support his agenda and move forward. i don't know what went on in the conversation. we'll find out in the mueller report. i do think we ought to be careful about calling people good hats and bad hats and white hats and black hats. i trust mueller. but what will come out will come out. but i'm open to the possibility this that there were very bad actors in the the fbi. and i remind you of mark felt and he was a hero but a deputy fbi director that was deep throat. so the fbi has a history of putting their fingers on the scale. one or two people at i time. so we just need to be open to what dan sullivan said to me today. there needs to be a lot of transparency, a lot of -- openness at the bureau. >> i'm trying to figure out a time when the fbi made up evidence. because that -- the implication is what? that they supposedly have a

political bias. and by the way, maybe it wasn't a political bias. maybe just a personal bias. we don't know what that is. people are trying to draw conclusions. but to go down that road, nobody has come up with a single piece of evidence that somehow it is -- it is somehow coming up with false allegations, are they making up allegations. the mark felt situation, did he make up anything. >> the ted stevens investigation involved a suppression of exonerating information and that seems to be the closest parallel to what is being alleged as the worse case scenario for the fbi. again we don't know. if they suppress exonerating information about the president or if the foreign intelligence surveillance corp which i used to serve as the assistant to two attorney general preparing the warrants with senior counter intelligence agents at the fbi, if they made that system pervert in order to get a fisa warrant to surveil trump tower there is a big problem if the intelligence community and the justice department are misusing section 702 or other authorities. but we don't know that.

my appeal to everyone is slow down and wait for mueller, slow down and wait for the ieg and i think rod rosenstein ought to recuse himself and turn it over to rachel brand. i think it is a mess at d.o.j. and fbi. >> is it -- but why is it amess? because you have a -- you have somebody who is making i concerted effort to muddy the waters. i would ask you this, if the president has nothing to -- to be afraid of, why isn't he open to an investigation. >> he keeps say he doesn't and he'll talk to them and he wants all of his people to talk to them and he's not concerned about jeff sessions talking to them. done mcgahn, you can't let your lawyer talk to them. so i think he's relaxed about this whole thing because he doesn't -- >> have you seen his twitter feed. >> i do. but there is no -- >> that feed doesn't exactly come across as somebody who isn't concerned -- if i wasn't concerned about it i wouldn't be tweeting it about it. >> i think he's learned if you want to change the subject away from anything you don't like,

treat about the russia investigation and if you are perfectly confident there is no collusion, tweet about it a lot. but i'm still open to anything. i rememb i remember ago new, and he walked out and reseened and if they walk in and they sit down with the president and say here is money laundering, family involvement, her here is collusion and data company and a lot of things could change overnight but let's wait and see because these text messages are deeply concerning. >> i understand that. then why -- >> they are not just pillow talk. >> do you believe rod johnson shouldn't have come out and gone so public because the responsible thing is let the i.g. do the job and then congress can question the i.g. report. >> i think it is fine for senators to bring a spotlight on the bureau and a need for a second special counsel icht wouldn't discuss any particular one because i don't have a full -- you have to lay out every play that is called to understand the game plan. picking and choosing text

messages tells me nothing as a former d.o.j. person. so i thought that was a littlin temper at but we do have a lot of smoke coming out of the bureau. >> hugh hewitt, as always sir, thank you. glad to have you on. >> thank you. >> come back to the east coast. california can't be that warm. >> it is beautiful out here. >> i know it is. up ahead, michael plin secret meeting with the fbi. why the former national security adviser hide it from the president? e been. when i found out i had age-related macular degeneration, amd, i wanted to fight back. my doctor and i came up with a plan. it includes preservision. only preservision areds 2 has the exact nutrient formula recommended by the national eye institute to help reduce the risk of progression of moderate to advanced amd backed by 15 years of clinical studies. that's why i fight. because it's my vision. preservision.

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welcome back. even as the march to discredit the fbi continues, we have a lot of news. one year ago then michael flynn did not tell top white house officials about his meeting with the fbi investigators in his west wing office by the way. the white house was first informed about that meeting two days later by the acting attorney general at the time, sally yates. nbc news also has learned that yate's is cooperating with

robert mueller's investigation into the trump campaign. cia director mike pompeo who was asked by president trump to lean on comey to drop his investigation into flynn has already been interviewed by the mueller team. remember he went -- tried to lean on the reports of coats and pompeo on that front. looking ahead, while the special counsel is seeking an agreement to talk to president trump, they plan on talking to former trump adviser steve bannon by the end of the month. we'll have more on the special counsel investigation and the push to investigate the investigators after the break.

welcome back. plenty to talk about there. let's get to tonight's panel. howard fineman and jennifer jacobs and michael steel, former rnc chair and the political analyst. jennifer, let me start with you. this white house effort, it's -- i'll say this, they no longer -- the white house press office no longer distances themselves from

the president's attempts to discredit the fbi. that to me has been an interesting change over the last month. >> one thing i want to point out, what this has led to is you have republicans defending andrew mccabe. like the former u.s. at the top of your show. >> right. >> and andrew mccabe has been scrupulously nonpartisan, despite his wife. so that is one thing. but i did have a trump official say that he speculated that the affect of the gop assault on the fbi is that it does sully robert mueller indirectly. that you start having people who start doubting the honesty and the professionalism of the fbi and the net affect is that people start blurring the letters fbi into f.i.b. which essentially -- whatever robert mueller comes out with in the end is sullied. >> howard? wow!

listen to what -- >> yeah. i talked to -- >> we're reliving the 1950s. >> a lot of conservatives -- it took the fbi from the time after watergate decades to really rebuild its credibility for independence and total professionalism and nonpolitical behavior. and donald trump and his allies are perfectly willing to wreck it if it gets in the way of defending him. i have not covered washington for a long time. i haven't seen a kind of a direct attack of the credibility of the fbi in the independence of the fbi on its nonpartisanship, on the professionalism, i haven't seen anything like that. and donald trump is doing a lot of things that nobody has seen the likes of. and he's utterly unembarrassed and unashamed about doing it. and he and his allies will do whatever it takes. they are using social media, they're using direct attacks, they're unearthed e-mails that

quite frankly are problematic and thaer -- and they are going to play that for all it is worth. and this is a huge end game beginning now in earnest and in public. >> michael, it is -- i guess i'm just -- i'm curious, i know what they're trying to do. but don't they look guilty here? the more they do this, i feel like they only -- it is sort of like when my -- the more they are explaining, the more you are going what are they worried about. >> that is the thing for me. all of this innocence that is out there surrounding the campaign and the white house, you sit back and do your investigation. meanwhile we're going to lay down the traxes for infrastructure and health care and for broader policy initiatives. we are not doing that. we have set up a wholesale operation between the white house and capitol hill to sully the reputation of good men and went who work inside of the fbi because of -- as you noted,

howard -- some e-mails. yes, they are problematic but let the appropriate authorities ferret that out. and the end game, what they don't understand, it could blow up in their face just as much as it could sully the fbi and that is a real problem. >> and the irony is we are talking about trump takes something -- and what harry reid said about james comey was outrageous in the summer. and yet somehow -- >> we've topped that. >> the president tops it. >> keep in mind he has been privately to people in the white house saying he has full confidence and sarah huckabee sanders said this yesterday, that the president does have confidence in christopher wray, the current fbi director and he does believe that christopher wray has the character to clean this up. so he is speaking in some positive ways about the fbi. >> let me tweet this -- this is what he tweeted today. where are the 50,000 important text messages between fbi lovers lisa page and peter strunk, blaming samsung. going down that road. this is the president of the

united states going after going after civil servants. that is what makes this to me -- they are not elected officials. this is like a new -- >> this is donald trump using twitter to say i will stop at nothing. and if it means stooping to attack civil servants, i'll do it. if it means transgetting traditional rules in washington, i'll do. >> it he's do -- he's doing same thing with page six instead of the stakes are so much higher. >> and again i say this is just the beginning of what i see as a political war that is now broken out full on and in public between donald trump and his allies and the fbi. and he may say right now that he's fine with the fbi director and so on, he's fine with them until he isn't fine with him -- >> as jeff sessions.

>> which i predict is down the road. >> and the truth of that is -- again, going back to republicans on this. they are going to rue the day of going down this road and having this institution come aback and he didn't have the kind of moral problems that are long lasting down the road. and then who are they going to look to. and then what happens in the next administration coming in and republican and democrat and you now have the sea bed of suspicion about these institutions, cia and fbi and justice department. what is the end game here? that is the question i have for the republicans. what is the end game. what is your expectation when it is all said and done, when the -- when mueller put this is report on the table, will you laugh at it or take it seriously whax is the end game. >> the durability of institutions doesn't matter to people in the ball game and that is where we're at. >> i'll pause here. we're coming back. up ahead, there is no place like kansas. where have i heard that before. the man most interesting in politics may become the next governor and he's not even a

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welcome back. at this hour, a bipartisan group of senators is meeting to discuss the next step forward in the fight for an immigration deal, a daca deal. according to senator joe mansion's office, 36 senators were invited to attend the discussion. and it is more than a third of the senate. we don't know if susan collins brought her talking stick with her. this is after the white house announced it will release their legislative framework on immigration this coming monday.

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welcome back. folks, we know 2018 is going to be a heck of a year in politics. so many key races across country and tonight we'll pull back the curtain on ruby red kansas. last summer the conservative legislature turned on the republican governor when they removed -- they moved to reverse his tax cuts after the state faced a huge budget shortfall and he was ranked one of the least popular governors in the country so the environment is pretty ugly out there for republicans. one of the republican front-runners is chris koba who stood behind unstan she ated claims of voter fraud and headed up president trump's voter commission before it was disbanded. and as of today there is one more person running. it is independent business man

greg orman who we call the most interesting man in politics back in 2014 when he gave a surprise race in a near upset against senator pat roberts back in 2014 and he joins me now in studio. welcome to the show. >> thank you. great to be here. >> let me start with this. are you running for governor and not senate? >> well, kansas right now is at a critical juncture. what happens over the next five years is really going to determine the path of the state for decades and like some kansasans i want to fundamentally change the direction we're on. >> when you almost beat pat roberts, democrats cleared the field for you nationally to give you that shot. they figured the only shot you had of beating a republican in a ruby red state was with somebody with an i. next to their name. this time the democrats want to run for governor. they almost won the governorship four years ago.

they say your -- a lot of democrats are arguing your candidacy guarantees crisco back's victory. what do you think of that. >> it is -- i'm tired of the argument that only two parties are entitled to governor in this country. the reality is kansas wants something different. we saw that in 2014 when 43% of them voted for an independent running for the united states senate. and we've built on that foundation. i think we're going to run a great campaign this cycle and i'm confident that we're going to ultimately win. >> one of the ways you projected your bonafide as an independent was you said you were going to caucus with whichever party had the majority. if you had won that senate race. what kind of independent guarantee do you give -- what -- what -- if you get elected and voters still want to a republican legislature, does that tell you you need to governor more like a republican. >> the reality is a governor doesn't caucus. a governor listens and leads and

ultimately we are talking to the voters of kansas about our vision for the state and it is a positive vision that is focused on growing the state's economy, proect tecti -- protecting the pillars of our community and bringing transparency back to the vote and that is resonating with republicans and democrat and independents, it is resonating against the spectrum. >> why aren't you a democrat? >> i'm an independent because i put my country and my state ahead avenue political party. i also believe as an independent it allows toe message to think for myself and use facts and common sense. >> if you are a member of a political party people don't look at you credibly. >> if you are a member of a political party, ultimately you have to answer to the special interests an the party bosses that control those parties. look at what happened in the shutdown recently. that was about two people in the united states senate. it wasn't about senators from either party. and ultimately i want to be able to serve the people of kansas, not have to serve special interests or party bosses. >> you get asked this question a lot so i assume -- you announced

in 2014 that you voted for obama in '08 and romney in '12. who did you vote for in '16. >> i didn't vote for either -- >> you picked a third party candidate. >> i wrote an article about the presidential contest where i -- where i referred to its a crisis of legit massey in our country. i wanted to send a message to both parties i was very dissatisfied with the choices that they gave us. and i think a lot of americans and a lot of kansas residents are right there with me. >> and what would you do if you continued as elected. >> i like his focus on vocational education. the reality is we tend to in this country value an academic education more than a vocational education and there is a real opportunity to reach a good middle income and middle class life if we allow people to pursue a different path. so i think that focus is positive. >> when it comes to frankly any race, but especially when you

are trying to break through in a red state, culture issues are going to be front and center with your opponents. on abortion, what is your position. >> i -- i sort of -- >> should be legal? >> yes. it should be legal. but again, i'm not -- i'm not -- i understand the points of view of people who are in the pro-life community. my mother is very pro-life. i understand a lot of people come to that position out of love and caring and frankly faith. and so i think we need to talk about the thing that we all agree on, which is how do you reduce the number of abortions -- >> what restrictions are in favor of. >> how we reduce the number of abortions and i think we've seen examples from other states. where they've done things and seen significant reductions in the abortion rate. and i think if we can come together on both sides of the issue, i think we can do that in kansas as well. >> some is state legislators want to ban abortion after 20 weeks phoenix that was on your desk would you sign that bill? >> i would have to look at the bill at the time.

ultimately i think abortion decisions should be made as early as possible. and i don't think anybody like as bor -- likes abortion but we're going to work with both sides of the aisle. >> let's talk about guns. what restrictions would you fight for? >> the reality is -- and i talked a lot to members of the nra in 2014 on the campaign trail. i think most americans are in the same spot on reasonable gun restrictions. i'm a believer that we need to have background checks, i'm a gun owner myself and i will tell you, i went through one. it was a revelively simple prosect. and didn't really affect my second amendment rights. i don't like -- >> too tough or not tough enough. this background check or was it a decent background check. >> i felt it was appropriate. >> quickly on the tax bill, good or bad for kansas. >> ultimately it wasn't good for kansas and i think brownback's biggest failing. >> i'm talking about the tax --

what just passed from what you know about this new federal tax law, good or bad for kansas. >> i think it is good for some people and bad for others. the reality is we were at a time in kansas where we made a lot of the same decisions that the federal government has made. and ultimately that doesn't work out -- >> so you are -- it sounds like your skeptical. >> we'll have to see what happens. >> greg orman, we'll be watching on the came trail. this could be a crazy year. should be interesting. up ahead, what happens when you lose an election fair and square, apparently to alabama republicans you try to change the rules. and the wolf huffed and puffed... like you do sometimes, grandpa? well, when you have copd, it can be hard to breathe. it can be hard to get air out, which can make it hard to get air in.

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tonight i'm obsessed with a short memory. we remember the catastrophic choice alabama republicans made, picking roy moore, a pedophile with extreme positions who had twice been removed from his job as chief justice of the alabama supreme court. bad move. you know the rest. moore losts an unlosable election to doug jones. first time a democrat won a seat in alabama since 1992. so did they conclude moore was the problem. they concluded the system was the problem. to yesterday alabama's house voted 67-31 along party lines to end special elections when there are senate vacancies. instead the replacement apointed by the governor would then serve until the next general election which in last year's case would not have come up for another

three years. so let's be clear about what republicans are thinking. we'll always have a republican governor who will always pick a republican replacement who could then serve out the term. no special election to mess things up. but at one point there will be a democratic governor making the choice and then what? i take you back to 2004. massachusetts democrats were panicked that if john kerry won the presidency, mitt romney would be there to pick a successor in the senate. so what happened? democrats said let's change the rules. so they changed the law to allow for a special election. kerry lost, and mitt romney wasn't there. and in 2010, after ted kennedy died, republican scott brown won the special. the democrats had control of the massachusetts governor mansion by the way. bottom line, when you change the rules to fit your problem, it almost comes back to bite you in the end. alabama republicans you better think about that one. we'll be right back. now you can join angie's list for free.

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time for "the lid", our panel is back. interesting, we got our first post shutdown of shutdown poll, first one out of the box, who was responsible for the shutdown, democrats 32%, president trump 31%, republicans 18%. interesting that it's trump not republicans as sort of the counter weight to the democrats. >> well, that's the ball game now, i mean all the attention, all the focus on donald trump. paradoxically because he didn't say anything, but people see through that, they know who really is responsible for the logjam. >> do people see through it or do we look at 32-31, 32% are blaming democrats and 31% of republicans are blaming trump and the other third are just sort of angry? >> it's possible.

>> those numbers feel awfully partisan to people. >> to me, actually they mean what was said at the time, which is long range this thing, in and of itself is not going to have major impact going down the line. >> the republicans going to be making a real offer on monday or just start negotiations? >> they're watching these polls, you know how the president loves to watch the polls. and the white house is going to clearly notice this, that americans despite the good economy are still grumpy and they're looking for change in d.c. and they're going to notice that this is the change that swept in trump in 2016 and democrats are poised to capitalize on that again. i know they're aware of those polls and they're going to have to be -- >> that's in another part of the polls which is really damage to the -- >> i do find something for the president here in this whole thing, he got a slice of voters

that weren't fans of him, they held their nose, but they thought, you know what? these clowns always shut down the government, grit lock, maybe trump's crazy style of negotiating may actually shake it up for a positive. if they're doing the same thing as when obama was president, that's not going to give them confidence. >> that's not going to give them confidence. and that's why the numbers look partisan in their makeup, it's really what's going on under the surface, what they're paying attention to is just how many of those votes could potentially slip away. and so to your question, what do they put on the table? i think the president's going to want to go for the extreme position. this is my hard ask up front, deal with it. i think other folks around him are going to go, we may need to soft pedal this a little bit because this is really on them at this point, because at the end of the day, you have taken the bargaining chip away with the whole chip program. >> speaking of the democrats here, i'm curious what you make

of the "new york times" joe manchin story. jennifer, i'll start with you, do we think chuck schumer folded because he thought manchin might not seek re-election and literally he thought, we cannot have that happen? or is manchin just wanting to make us all think that? >> probably manchin is wanting us to think that. that would be my answer. >> i don't think it was just manchin. i think that the white house managed to get the upper hand in the spin war on this. >> that's it. >> they were much more aggressive. say what you want about whether it's a bully pulpit or twitter, the president and his people were more loud, more insistent, more consistent, more ruthless, they also had ads out there from allies that, you know, stretched the bounds of not only credit --

in favor -- i think chuck said for now, it's not worth it. >> you're a bloomberger, breaking news, broomberg wire, trump said he would talk to special counsel mueller under oath. >> under oath is the keyword. we have been trying to get him pinned down on that. he's talking about comey being a liar, comey went and spoke publicly under oath, would trump be willing to do the same thing publicly? >> were you able to advance any of the timing on this? that's just saying if he agreed to do this, we don't know that he will do it under oath, but lying to the fbi is already a crime. >> it's a little bit of a problem. >> i mean whether you're under oath or not, lying to the fbi is still a no-no. >> the idea that the president is going to get anything less than under out is ridiculous. they're not going take written

testimony, this is not going to be a home work assignment, mueller's going to want to sit down face-to-face with the president and ask him a series of questions. because part of that process is also observing how you answer questions, not just what you say. >> very quickly remind people what bill clinton ended up doing, he appeared in front of the grand jury with his lawyer on camera, under oath. >> my cynical take on this is that donald trump will do whatever he can politically and to the agencies going after him, whether he speaks under oath or not in his mind doesn't matter because this is a political war from him. >> look at that, you come here and you get breaking news. i saw you checking your phone when it came over. up ahead, flagging a discrepancy in south carolina.

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in case you missed it, pop quiz, let's test your kk south carolina knowledge, which one of these is the official south carolina state flag. look at them closely, any idea? time's up. the correct answer is, none of them. south carolina has no official specifications for what the state flag should look like. you got your crest sent right here, you got your palmetto there, other than that, it's open season. so the south carolina congress

is trying to put forth a measure to standardize it. but the committee says it needs more research. the other states are starting to talk, south carolina, look at the goddesses on the state flag of new jersey, silently judging. the we look forward to your banner sharing the same design. i think i know what breaking news he's about to talk about. >> i just saw it on your show at the end of the hour. chuck todd, the breaking news right now, donald trump saying he will talk to special counsel bob mueller under oath. this news is coming in, nbc's kristen welker is reporting it as we speak, donald trump basically saying here on the record that he will talk to bob mueller, of course there's no date for this face-to-face yet, but his lawyers are telling him two to three weeks. this breaking news comes, of