steve, this is a crime, but one where do you predict any progress on immigration reform? steve schmidt? >> no, not really. it's going to be very contentious, and i don't think trump will resist his base. >> all right. my thanks to steve, bill, eli, and elise. >> how are you doing? well done. if it's thursday, the president will definitely maybe talk to the special counsel. >> tonight, it's a trap. fears of a perjury trap with bob mueller take the president literally or seriously? >> i will say if this talk is real, and the interview is coming up that bob mueller is probably farther along in the investigation than some might have imagined. >> plus, what's the deal on immigration talks? >> i think the more you do an immigration all at once, the harder it is to pass. >> and dividing lines. how more states are changing the

2018 election game by striking down partisan gerrymandering. this is "mtp daily" and it starts right now. >> good evening. i'm chuck todd here in washington. welcome to "mtp," did the white house back the trump base. they're backing citizenship for 1.8 million undocumented immigrants, but it will come at a steep cost for democrats. we'll get to that story in a ploemant. we're going to begin with the president running towards a showdown with bob mueller, as his allies beg him to run away from sitting down with bob mueller. see if you notice a pattern. >> under no circumstances should he grant mr. mueller an interview. it's a suicide mission. it's a very clear perjury trap. >> do you think that's a good move for him?

>> horrible. if i were his attorney, i would grab him by the ankle to prevent him from going into a room and given sworn testimony, walk into a perjury trap. >> i wouldn't let him get anywhere near this. trump improvises as he goes. it's a perjury trap. even if mueller isn't setting it up as a perjury trap. it still is one. >> the perjury trap alarm has also been sounded by the president's own legal team. >> i would hope that a fair-minded office of special counsel would approach it in a dutiful way consistent with precedent, and it wouldn't be a mere perjury trap. >> do you have any fear of a perjury trap? >> no, but i think it would be -- i think it would be foolish to, you know, not proceed without considering that possibility. >> another attorney also said it's a trap.

folks, the president's allies might argue they're worried about a conspiracy where bob mueller's team rigs it to catch the president in a lie, but you could argue there are actual concerns that are much more grounded in reality. more goes to what rush limbaugh was talking about. they're worried mr. trump is going towillingly mislead mueller. because if you want to talk about a trap, the president's best defense in an interview with mueller may be, don't take me seriously. the president's biggest problems may be that he's been telling the truth so far, maybe. in which case, he's got more than perjury to worry about. for instance, if you ask mr. trump, would you have taken dirt on clinton from the russians, his answer has been sure. >> it's called opposition research or even research into your opponent. it's very standard where they have information and you take the information. >> if you ask, did you fire the fbi director because of the russia investigation, his answer has been, you betcha. >> in fact, when i decided to just do it, i said to myself, i

said, you know, this russia thing with trump and russia is a made-up story. it's an excuse by the democrats for having lost an election. >> and if you ask, did you know michael flynn lied to the fbi when you fired comey, his tweets have all but said i did. quote, i had to fire general flynn because he lied to the vice president and the fbi. folks, we have been told time and time again not to treat the president's words like sworn statements. not even when he commits to giving, you guessed it, sworn statements. here he is yesterday speaking with reporters about being interviewed by federal investigator. >> did hillary do it under oethd? >> i have no idea. >> i think you have an idea. >> do you think -- >> wait, wait, do you not have an idea? do you really not have an idea? >> i really don't remember. >> i'll give you an idea. she didn't do it under oath, but i would do it under oath. >> to reach a higher standard, you would do it under oath? >> i would. >> the president's lawyer noted he was speaking to reporters her

i'dly before leaving for davos, and the subject of the terms of the interview are still being negotiated. i'm joined by one of the better legal journalists in the business these days. he's focused his career on this these days. good to see you. >> nice to be with you, chuck. >> we have heard it's a trap, it's a trap, and all these friends of the president say don't do this, don't do this. is it a perjury trap? and what is the trap that his friends are worried about, in your view? >> first, i think the perjury trap alarmists are missing something big. he can't avoid testifying. he has to testify. >> this is not a choice. >> this isn't by choice. and so he can -- you know, he can put it off, so they're alarmed by the fact he's saying bring it on, i want to do it right away. but bill clinton had to testify. you don't think he wanted to, do you, when he was president? >> he didn't do it by choice. >> the president may be able to avoid testifying in a civil case while he's president but not in a criminal case.

not at least a case as big as this one. it's not so much when he testifies. it's the conditions under which -- i'm sorry, whether. it's when and what conditions. as for a trap, well, there is such a thing as a perjury trap in the legal sense. it means when the prosecutor is improperly bringing someone in front of the grand jury solely for the purpose of trying to catch him in a lie and charge him with perjury. bob mueller would be violating his obligations if he tried to do that. i don't think he's going to do it. what these people are really worried about, and ty cobb knows he's going to have to testify some day, is whenever he testifies, you've got a guy who is known, i think, universally, for saying lot and lots and lots of things that aren't true. whether he's deliberately lying or having fun or he's just a little confused or he's -- you shouldn't take him literally, you can argue about that, but you get in trouble when you say things that aren't true in front of a prosecutor, especially if

you're already on the record saying all kinds of things that look pretty bad to a prosecutor. >> what do those statements mean? i mean, when he -- he has said i was joking when i say, hey, russia, if you can find her e-mails, yet here he is in an investigation. is it prosecutorial discretion that makes the decisions about whether those statements are relevant or not? who decides whether his statements some of which we have played, are part of the investigation? >> well, initially, mueller does. now, not many people think he could just be indicted based on the public record so far, right? so there seems to be kind of a consensus in a way if you don't do it secretly, then it doesn't seem like collusion, right? you just do it on national tv, how can it be collusion? maybe it can be collusion, but i think mueller would recognize that's a hard sell, what he said on national tv was, you know,

was going to be collusion or conspiracy. but that still doesn't make it easy for trump to handle that question. what did you mean, exactly, when you invited the russians. that's a very hard question for him to answer, which is why i think any lawyer representing him would look upon the prospect of his testimony as a nightmare but it's a nightmare they know is coming sooner or later. >> as you said, mueller will decide whether he wants to interview the president or not. it's likely he's going to want to. and if you look at the scope of his investigation, there's sort of two that we assume he wants to interview the president on, one has to do with the ubstruxz of justice, the comey firing, the flynn, all of that. that's a clean part of the investigation. the other is more complicated and has to do with perhaps the trump organization and things like that. it sounds like mueller is simply wanting to talk to him about this and punting that. if you're the pred's lawyers, do you say, you get him once. let's do this only once.

or not? >> i would say that i would give that a try. >> you would give it a try. >> then if mueller said -- >> sorry buddy. >> you sure you want it that way? you're not going to like it if we do it once. >> you think it would be -- >> i think that mueller would have the leverage to say, i reserve the right to come back and ask more questions, either about the same subject or another subject. if they say no, you get a pr war, but i think it's probably a war that mueller wins. obviously, he can't be dragging the president up there and wasting his time over and over again without a good reason, but maybe he'll say to trump's lawyers, you know, we're not claiming yet that we have a lot, you know, that we have a case on collusion, conspiracy. we're looking right now at obstruction of justice. >> we need to do this part first. >> if you want to get that behind you, let's do it. and we can talk about the other stuff later. >> i just got handed a note, john dowd, one of the president's lawyers, confirms to

nbc news he will be the one to confirm whether he sits down with an interview with mueller, and he hasn't made a decision on whether an interview with mueller would happen. you would say, mr. dowd, that's not your decision? >> well, he could plead the fifth amendment. that would be a reason to say i'm not going to testify. >> is that the only way he can refuse -- >> i think it is. who knows what someone could come up with. >> but pleading the fifth is the only way out of this. >> i think so, and i'm not sure that's a way out of it. >> pr wise, a terrible idea. >> a, and b, i don't know if mueller would do this, but he could say okay, you have immunity. we won't criminally prosecute you for anything you say to the grand jury. but of course, congress is watching. and they can impeach you for what you say to the grand jury. and if you lie to the grand jury, we can prosecute you for that. so mueller has a lot of leverage here. >> it sounds like what you're saying is we in the press corps,

we shouldn't even bother worrying about what the white house thinks they can do with mueller. this is all in mueller pfrs court. >> it's always interesting to see what the white house thinks they can do, but i think this is mueller's call, unless trump has something up his sleeve that i'm having trouble imagining. and it wouldn't be the first time he did. >> fair enough. stewart taylor, probably the best legal journalist that i know. so good to so you, sir. >> good to see you. >> thanks for being on. >> mueller's team will have plenty to talk about with the president over the months, the allegations have piled up and the president has denied most of them. >> according to "the washington post," the cia has concluded that russia intervened in the election to help you win the presidency. your reaction. >> i think it's ridiculous. i think it's just another excuse. i don't believe it. >> he did say under oath that you told him to let the flynn -- you said you hoped the flynn investigation, you could let go -- he could let go. >> i didn't say that. >> so he lied about that?

>> i didn't say that. i will tell you i didn't say that. >> did he ask you to pledge his -- >> there would be nothing wrong if i did say it according to everybody i read today. >> i think looking into me and the campaign, look, i have nothing to do -- this was set up by the democrats. there is no collusion between me and my campaign and the russians. >> i can tell you speaking for myself, i own nothing in russia. i have no loans in russia. i don't have any deals in russia. >> everything that i have done is 100% proper. that's what i do, i do things proper. >> let's bring in tonight' panel, rumesh, susan glasser, and steve mcmahon, a democratic strategist. welcome, all. all right. ramesh, the president's friends are publicly getting into this about don't do this with mueller. as stewart correctly points out, it seems like they almost want

to force mueller's hand to issue the subpoena. you would think that's the worst outcome for this president, to publicly be forced to come before mueller. >> and the argument that they're making, which is that this would be a so-called perjury trap for the president, is the exact same one that bill clinton's defenders made of him in 1998. and then, as now, it seems to me to be a little bit self-undermining because in fact, the president can't be trapped into lying under oath. that is entirely his decision. and these allies are expressing their own concern that this president's not an honest man, even under the most serious of circumstances. >> i am not surprised by john dowd's statement saying i'll be the one to decide when he talks to mueller. john dowd is known to be a very boisterous on some of these things. but it isn't his decision. i do think it sounds like they're trying to get the president to stop talking about this. that, i guess, is what maybe that john dowd statement is trying to say. >> look, the reporting suggests

that his aides as well as apparently his legal team were surprised once again when the president unexpectedly walked in and made this announcement to a group of reporters yesterday. so is this the first time and will it be the last time that donald trump says something that surprises his own legal team? absolutely not. but i think ramesh's point is one worth remembering here. listening to the clips you teed up for us, these are his own supporters basically saying we don't want the president of the united states to testify because we think he lies so much that he might get in trouble. >> also, and i don't even think he would be setting a trap. he's saying -- >> mueller isn't setting a trap. >> he'll light himself on fire. >> can you believe this is the time we're living in where the president's own supporters are basically saying, he's a pathological liar. that's their defense, or that's their shield against going in to talk to bob mueller. i think stewart's observation is right. bob mueller is going to get him in there. >> speaking of bob mueller, it noted, a longtime trump

political sshz said the following, using the clinton special play book, kill the investigator, obfuscate the charge. this is the government against the people's president. it's an easy narrative. steve, i'm going to start with you, since perhaps you participated in that narrative in 1998 or perhaps not as a democratic strategist, and we all remember -- >> i participated. >> -- some of those. it seems like in many ways you look add house republicans. it was house democrats back in the day that did it on behalf of the president. some of these republicans, true partisans who have nothing to fear politically, going after mueller, going after the fbi. muddying things up. is it going to work? >> so i would say the playbook is similar, if not exactly the same, that will give them that. but the underlying, one of the reasons that the outrage on the left was so severe in that case is you were talking about consensual sex in the oval office. it was inappropriate, it was sexual harassment, all those things, but it wasn't the russians coming in and trying to

change the outcome of an election. it wasn't obstruction of justice in the white house. it wasn't all the things that we see here that, you know, are criminal and they're not civil and they're not private. and consensual. so it's a different scale, i think, we're investigating serious crimes here, felonies. bill clinton tripped over it in his deposition. no question. and it was a perjury trap for him. but i just think what we're talking about here, the underlying crime or the underlying accusations, are much, much different. >> ramesh, today we found out more from the text messages and ron johnson had to walk back things even further. but was the damage already done? you know, two days. two days of this illusion of these text messages and all of a sudden, we find out, it was just a stupid joke. everybody realizes they overread them. they went over their skis. but i'm guessing that those who were trying to muddy the waters don't care. >> i think that we have seen an escalation of charges and countercharges.

and that most people who are trying to follow this with some degree of diligence but are not junkies are having a hard time sorting through the claims and the counterclaims. and i think actually in a way, that ends up helping the republicans toward the conclusion just release as much of this as possible. release the republican memo, release the democratic memo. release the source documents. i do think they've got a reasonable point here in that the fbi, the department of justice, the american government in general has a bias towards overclassification. >> look, you're echoing david french today in the national review. i read his piece where he makes the argument, this may sound absurd by saying release the memo and don't show the memo. don't just release the memo. release the source material which helped produce the memo, which is where fisa subpoenas, where fisa subpoenas are used based on the steele dossier. that's what the allegation seems to be. >> now we're going to be in a

situation which is almost orwellian where you have the democrats saying in effect, well, the underlying classified material is being misused or distorted but we can't tell you what that is. now the department of justice is basically making the exact same argument. this would damage potentially national security, but we can't tell you why, but you should send this memo to us. i think the political point here, though, is one that we need to come back to. it is the bill clinton playbook, which is muddy the waters. overwhelm. bill clinton showed as a political matter, that lying was an effective public defense for him. it bought him time. and then, you know, when he then perceived he was in legal jeopardy, he changed his testimony when he went to the grand jury. he lied in the paula jones deposition. this was vividly recalled by all of us 20 years ago exactly last week. there's no way that donald trump and his team have not looked at that playbook and understood very clearly what the jeopardy

is. >> i would submit to you, though, that bill clinton and donald trump are completely different in terms of going into a deposition. who would you rather take in as a client, bill clinton or a pathological liar? >> we had every parallel in this case to the clinton case except we haven't had trump get up there and say i didn't have treasonous relationships with that country. >> actually, he did say that. the russians, i have no this in russia, no that in russia, oh, by the way, can you find the e-mails? >> the other parallel we could have, it is true this is a more serious underlying accusation, but if you end up with perjury but you don't actually have a charge of obstruction, you don't have a charge of this kind of corruption and this kind of collusion, it's going to play the same way. >> look, i don't think mueller is going to be referring obstruction of justice and perjury to congress. if he's referring stuff to congress, it's going to be bigger than those two issues. i do think what we're discussing here is a smaller part of mueller's probe than we think. i'm going to pause it here. stick around.

we have daca to talk about. we launched an interactive timeline of the russia investigation. it's fantastic. you can check out all the pager events, key figures, how it all played out. it's actual facts, no innuendo. nbcnews.com/russiatimeline. >> up ahead, the white house backs a path to citizenship for d.r.e.a.m.ers. we'll have all the new developments on this daca deal next. i'm so frustrated. i just want to find a used car without getting ripped off. you could start your search at the all-new carfax.com that might help. show me the carfax. now the car you want and the history you need are easy to find. show me used trucks with one owner. pretty cool. [laughs] ah... ahem... show me the carfax. start your used car search and get free carfax reports at the all-new carfax.com. going somewhere? whoooo. here's some advice. tripadvisor now searches more... ...than 200 booking sites -

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welcome back. breaking news this last hour. president trump reportedly will indeed support a path to citizenship for daca recipients, and quote, d.r.e.a.m.ers who were eligible for daca but did not apply. that's a big new chunk of folks they're willing to support here. that's according to a senior administration official in a phone call between white house adviser stephen miller and house republican staff. that puts the number at 1.8 million people who would be eligible. and it also is included in the immigration proposal from

senators graham and durbin. but the white house also wants a vote on this by the vehicle of february 6th, the same week government funding runs out. they're calling this a compromise that could get 60 votes. it confirms exactly what president trump told reporters last night. >> do you want citizenship for d.r.e.a.m.ers? ? we're going to morph into it. it's going to happen. >> what does that mean, what does morph into it mean? >> over a period of 10 to 12 years, somebody does a great job, they have worked hard. it gives incentive to do a great job. >> citizenship for d.r.e.a.m.ers is a far cry from august 2015 when then candidate trump told me he wanted every undocumented person deported. the remarks last night sent the staff scrambling in what one official called a fire drill, and breitbart responded with a headline like this, immigration shock, amnesty don suggests citizenship for illegal aliens. over the last several days a bipartisan group of dozens of

senators have been trying to reach a compromise on what could pass the senate on immigration might not be able to pasthe house, but this is sure to change the contours of the debate. we'll talk about it more in 60 seconds. there's a vacation at the end of every week with hilton. whatever type of weekender you are, don't let another weekend pass you by.

get the lowest price when you book at hilton.com welcome back to mtp daily. let's bring back the panel, ramesh, susan, and steve. here's a few more things about the deal. 1.8 million, also a $20 billion trust fund for the border wall, ending what they're calling chain migration, family-based, the idea of sponsoring family members come in once you get into the country. and then getting rid of the visa lottery altogether. i can tell you -- i can tell you the issue that some democrats are going to have an issue with, steve. that is making a permanent immigration change for the entire system for daca. that has been among the disputes between the two, where the white house has been saying, fine, we'll do the daca thing, but we want to end chain migration, and

democrats don't want to do that. >> i don't normally agree with marco rubio, but he said the more you try to do in one of these immigration deals, the harder it is to do it. >> that's a man who knows of what he speaks. >> you need 60 votes in the senate, which means the steve king approach -- >> not 60. you need 80, if you're going to truly force the house to do what they need to do, you need 60 technically, but 80 politically. >> they had 68 last time, and 68 with donald trump pounded on house republicans might be enough. i'm not sure if it will be. >> what do you make of the amnesty issue? is the breitbart wing going to accept this if they somehow got an end to chain migration. >> if you is a wall, you have the reduction in chain migration, then i don't think you would get everybody on the republican side. you would get a lot of them. i think you would lose a lot of democrats. it's hard for me to see that deal. the other thing that somebody who is trying to figure out whether they want to go ahead with this deal has to figure out is, is the white house on the same page tomorrow?

because this is today's white house. >> this is the first time in fairness, it actually, what donald trump said yesterday is now backed up by a conference call that we are well aware of here at nbc news that stephen miller had. the first time they're stephen miller's words and the president's words line up. >> ramesh is right. the president has changed his decision so he can easily decide this doesn't work when he hears an earful from his friends in the house. you raise this issue of what do you need to get the house republicans in particular, the hard right, the freedom caucus to go along with it. last time i was here with you, you had mark meadows on. you know, on the one hand, he's been a pretty reliable sort of trump mouthpiece. on the other hand, this doesn't comport with anything we have heard from that house republicans around immigration issue. fwl speaking of house republicans, there was a congressional debate last night in arizona's eighth

congressional district. republican side. let me just give you a taste. >> basically, i agree with president trump's agenda. we need to build the wall. >> time to build a wall. when it comes to daca, i oppose daca. president obama created daca with the stroke of a pen and rewrote immigration law. we should do away with daca and go back to letting immigration judge each case individually. >> i have been at the border a number of times, and i have suffered being robbed by illegals a couple time in l.a. and getting hit by one in a car accident. i never got a dime from anybody because they took off. all this nonsense about the poor people, the poor people, what about the poor kids in our country that are getting uneducated or ill educated and all the people out of work? >> daca is misguided. its criteria is misguided. you can be a 15-year-old, travel to the u.s. illegally and get a work permit within five years. >> i can with certainty tell you and with confidence tell you i have done more than anyone on this stage to fight against

illegal immigration. >> all of those, by the way, these are the republicans vying to replace trent franks, who resigned his seat. so this is for that. that's all the republican candidates running. none of those sound like people that would vote to give amnesty to 1.8 million daca recipients. >> and of course, when they're standing on a stage in a republican primary, they're not going to sound that way. donald trump didn't sound that way on the same stage a year or so ago. what happens when you get to washington is you want to get things done. especially if you're mr. deal maker, you want to get things done. i do think, though, what they represent and what you heard from them is similar to what the freedom caucus believes, to what the people like steve king, the hard right, believe. but they all caved on tax reform. they were big -- >> taxes is not immigration, man. i don't know. ramesh, you have seen this first hand. i mean, i look at national review, you have been trying to be compromising conservatives for some time. and on immigration, you guys get the heck beat out of you, don't you? >> we take it from both sides on

this issue because we are moderate restrictionists on immigration. i do think that if this deal, if something close to this deal ends up being what people vote on, i think a lot of republicans would be able to go back to their voters and say, hey, we got a wall. we got a kind of reform to the legal immigration system that nobody had even been talking about before this year. but the terms of the deal matter a lot. people have a lot of distrust, especially republican primary voters, that you're really going to enforce the laws going forward. >> we know there's so many ways that wall, you can fund the wall, it may never get built. going to be hard to get it built in some of these places. not much federal land that the federal government truly controls to build this wall. >> what about mexico paying for it? >> what happened to that? >> that's -- we're going back into the gpp and we're not going to kill nafta. >> stick around. up ahead, what does this look like to you? >> it's not a raur shaw test. that's maryland's third

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there's an electoral wave under way across the country right now. we're not talking about the democratic party's hopes for 2018. i'm talking about the growing wave of court decisions breaking down electoral maps grown for gain. this is not a new thing, but the courts are weighing in. the supreme court rules congressional district maps adopted by the state legislature in 2011 clearly and palpably violation the state's constitution and they said the state can't use the gerrymandered districts for the upcoming elections. north carolina, pennsylvania, are seeing charges in court. both parties are guilty of this whenever they can. republicans controlled more state legislatures last time maps were drawn. joining me is richard, an expert in electoral laws and voting

rights and is a professor at nyu's law school. professor, welcome to the show. >> glad to be here, chuck. >> let's start with what has changed in the last two or three years that has suddenly brought a whole bunch of these maps before state supreme courts that have essentially, you know, gotten -- gotten this far in the legal system. it's obviously, there is some activity around the country. >> a lot of federal judges and state judges, i think, are aware of how much more aggressive partisan gerrymandering has become in the last decade. it's always been a problem. there's no question about that. but the incentives to do it are so much greater now than they have been in the past because of the way in which the house is on the margin of a knife's edge, and partisan control is at stake constantly. the technology has made it much more effective to engage in these gerrymanders. and you had many more state legislatures with unified party

control in this decade of districting than in prior decades. and i think judges at some level understand all of this. they have a sense that the system has really gotten to a point of being hard to legitimate. a lot of newspaper stories point this out to the public. and so you're seeing a lot of action. you're seeing a dam burst in many ways in the courts on this issue in a way we have not seen in prior decades. >> i guess my question, though, is how do you define what's partisan? i think that's -- you know, one person's partisan map is another person's just sort of like, well, you know, do i know for sure how this community is going to vote the next time? i mean, this is not an easy thing to decipher. >> well, one of the things that's interesting about some of these cases is that the partisan intent has been proclaimed very baldly and without any equivocation without the redistricters. i think that's one of the things the courts are seeing.

in fact, the -- >> so the motivation behind -- so if basically the house majority leader of pick the house, say pennsylvania, said boy, we're going to make a map that's going to pick up three republican seats, then that is how the state supreme court said, ah, see, aha? >> well, it's a combination of whether there's a very clear partisan intent and then what is the effect of the map? how extreme are the partisan disadvantage imposed by the opposing party? and what the courts have struggled with for many decades on this issue is exactly this problem. if legislators are going to be doing this, it's hard to be shocked that political considerations are going to be part of the process. so the question for the courts has been, well, at what point do we say this is just too much? this is too extreme, this is too much of a corruption of the basic idea that voters are supposed to be choosing politicians who are accountable to them? >> if a state decides, so for instance, like i thought about different remedies for this.

so let's say a state decides -- you know, can they decide we will use the average of the last two gubernatorial elections, the partisan breakdown, whatever that average is, and say okay, if it's 55/45 in favor of one party, well then no party can have a congressional district that's more than, say, 60% or something like that. is that what we're going to need, maybe state laws or state constitutions to draw parameters about defining what's partisan and the outer edge of partisanship? >> many of us think the real solution ultimately is a change of institutions doing the drawing of the districts. so when you put this in the hands of politicians, it's inevitable that they're going to be tempted to protect themselves and their partisan allies. the solution is to take it out of the hands of self-interested political actors, create commissions which a number of states have been moving to in recent years. give them transparent criteria,

specify in advance what the rules are, what the priorities are, and then let them draw the districts according to those kinds of criteria. you can tell the redistricters they have to maximize the competitiveness of districts. you can tell them they can't take political considerations into account when they draw the districts. you can tell them to pay attention to respecting county boundaries, city boundaries, town boundaries. there are a variety of ways of doing this, but the fundamental change is to take it out of the hands of self-interested politicians. >> answer me this last question, though. who -- who decides what's partisan? is it the supreme court here? or at what point do they say, look, we know this is out of whack, but we're not going to tell you what parameters to use. that's a state rights issue. >> well, the supreme court, a majority of the court has said that extreme partisan gerrymandering is unconstitutional. the court has recognized that idea. the problem is figuring out, can the courts develop a remedy that's consistent and the courts

are comfortable applying? so there are difficult issues here, to be sure. but knowing that partisan gerrymandering is unconstitutional when taken to an extreme is something that a majority of the justs have been saying for long time now. >> okay, but they still can't post the speed limit. they haven't told me what defines an extreme partisanship. what is that? is that 80%? is that 70%? what's the speed limit sign? >> without getting too technical here, the key notion is does a plan treat the two parties symmetrically? for example, if 45% of the votes go to democrats and they get 45% of the seats, that may be fine as long as if 45% of the votes went to republicans, they get 45% of the seats. so that's a standard measure that a lot of social scientists have used and a key part of the litigation taking place right now. >> that was a terrific way to end this. that's what i was looking for. explain to me the speed limit sign. anyway, richard, thank you, sir.

that was great. >> thank you, chuck. >> up ahead, are we really closing in on doomsday, or is it time to just stop this clock? 30% savings for safe drivers. coming at you with my brand-new vlog. just making some ice in my freezer here. so check back for that follow-up vid. this is my cashew guy bruno. holler at 'em, brun. kicking it live and direct here at the fountain. should i go habanero or maui onion? should i buy a chinchilla? comment below. did i mention i save people $620 for switching? chinchilla update -- got that chinchilla after all. say what up, rocco. ♪

welcome back. tonight, i'm obsessed with the end of the world. and i feel fine. that's why you should be converted all of your assets into gold right now. just kidding. make it all bitcoin. the bulletin of atomic scientists moved their doomsday

clock up by 30 seconds. they say it's now two minutes to midnight, perilously close to a man-made apock ls. they're blaming president trump's comments supporting nuclear weapons as well as his war of words with kim jong-un. the scientists also add hyperbolic rhetoric and provocative actions on both sides have increased the possibility of nuclear war by accident or miscalculation. point taken. bulletin of atomic scientists, but i have a feeling your time may be off. since this clock came into existence in 1947, it's never been more than 17 so-called minutes away from midnight. that's still a quarter to catastrophe. maybe it's time to stop the claub. do we really need an apocalyptic alarm ringing frantically every year, doing chicken little for us. maybe we should hit the snooze and chill out for a minute or two. seriously, a time-out from this time freakout might do everything some good. we'll be back. your eyes. that's why there's ocuvite. ocuvite helps replenish nutrients

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time for the lid. panel is back. ramesh, steve, susan. we have, i showed you some clips from one special election. debate, arizona eight. very substantive, this is on debate, arizona, there also a special election in pennsylvania. one that republicans are favored in, but they're a little bit nervous. they're nervous enough that the nacc is out with a ad against the democrats. you do need to know that the democrat nominee's name is connor lamb. >> nancy had a little lamb. >> if i play the whole ad it will be even worse, your tv will crack. it was not well done. connor lamb is one of the first congressional candidates saying he's not going to support nancy pelosi. he said he wants to see new

leadership. steve mcmahon, will the nancy lamb attack ad work in an election in 2018? >> this is a referendum on the incumbent president, which has the republicans nervous. if his approval rating is not higher than 30%, we're going to be hearing more about it. >> this is the nrcc's attempt to say, can we trot this out one more time? >> and apparently can we do it on a shoe string budget. look, i think the fact that the democratic congressional candidate is distancing himself from pelosi suggests that there is something to the idea that this might work. but in most districts around the country, voters are more concerned about donald trump than nancy pelosi.

there are more voters who are polarized about trump than polarized about pelosi. this might work in your redder districts, but districts that went for mitt rom in 2012 and then went for hillary clinton in 2016, i don't see that tactic working. >> it's funny you say that, they did use pelosi in georgia 6. and this is a red leaning district, that it would be a disaster if republicans lost this because donald trump's actually visited the district. >> you know, i think the view generally is if it's a nationalized election at the house level or even sometimes at the senate level, that's not going to be good for donald trump, that means that the president is the focus of scrutiny. and it's hard to think that republicans tried this with ted kennedy, it didn't work. >> democrats have been runni-- f

you make the most sipelosi atta decision as a republican -- >> you do not want to make this a race about donald trump when he's got a 35% approval rating. you want to make it about local concerns, you want to have the candidate distance himself not just from donald trump but from local republicans and run a race that's localized. >> mitt romney is finally going to unveil his papers and start doing things you have to do to run a senate campaign. i don't know if you can win by acclimation in utah, but i guess it's possible. i joke about that, but i have a feeling somebody who is pretty, you know, pro trump, maybe just for publicity sake decides to primary romney just to get the attention. >> i think there are a lot of trump supporters around the country that would be really happy to see someone at least punch him in the nose, whether

or not romney winds up winning, i'm not sure that whoever challenges him would have a chance of knocking him off, but at least make him fight for it a little bit. >> when you see in this case, the presidential nominee, was it hubert humphrey that was a nominee and then ran for a seat? but, you know, we have had former presidential candidates like bob dole, and others. >> how much of a -- is he going to slide into the principled voice of the republican opposition. mitt romney's personality is not that. i do think we have skipped over the election and gone right to it. steve bannon was very focussed on romney, not wanting him to be in there, donald trump personally intervened to see if

he could get hatch to stay in. >> he told him if he runs, he's going to win by acclimation. >> i'm pining for mitt romney. i can't believe i'm saying this, i want mitt romney. >> you could actually do multiple stories today, when the president's in davos, look what happens. up ahead, potty politics. i needed legal advice for my shop. that's when i remembered that my ex-ex- ex-boyfriend actually went to law school, so i called him. he didn't call me back! if your ex-ex- ex-boyfriend isn't a lawyer, call legalzoom

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well, in case you missed it,

art is all about expressing yourself. just ask new york's famed gugenheim museum which had no problem expressing itself to the trump administration in i guess one of the most artistic trolls we have witnessed ever. last year, the white house asked to borrow a painting called "landscape of snow." the gug ergugenheim refused and them -- the guggenheim refers to it as an interactive exhibit, which i'm going to just leave right there. you can imagine what that means. they say it offers a wink to the excesses of the art market but also evokes the american dream of opportunity for all. this was the email response back

to the white house. okay. the white house did not respond to the offer from the guggenheim museum, but i think we know somebody who might. >> i want a toilet made out of solid gold, but that's not in the cards, is it? >> it might be. the guggenheim museum is not above a little humor. chuck, now i have to ask, is there a theory that the shared humanity resides in our common love of art or just in the use of toilets? >> i think it in our common need, how's that? >> yes. >> our common necessity for what the toilet represents. >> you know, your show is unpredictable, you are unpredictable. that news story from the guggenheim was unpredictable. but i feel enriched by it. >> you need to be rich to buy it. so there you go.