that does it for us. thanks to lydia and john and philip and al sharpton. i'm nicolle wallace. "mtp daily" starts right now. hi, chuck. >> how are you? there is so much smoke. >> where is the fire. >> billowing and billowing. i think we're searching for that fire. thank you nicolle, happy weekend. and if it is friday, where there is smoke, you're fired. tonight how serious was the president when he ordered his counsel to fire bob mueller. will republicans push to protect mueller from a firing? >> do you want to fire robert mueller? >> fake news, folks, fake news. plus the immigration plan hits a wall on both sides of the aisle. can a bipartisan group of senators break through the impasse or will a bipartisan

group kill the bill? we'll talk to one of the lead republican negotiators. and in the wake of the larry nassar trial, congress takes aim at the olympics and usa gymnastics. this is "mtp daily" and it starts right now. good evening. i'm chuck todd here in washington. welcome to "mtp daily." by the way, did you know that monday was the government shutdown? any way, republican leaders made it seem impossible. they could not believe it because it would end the trump presidency so they didn't have to do anything about it. >> i cannot imagine a serious conversation taking place in the white house about firing mueller. that would be a major mistake. >> i can't believe they would think of such a thing. tell me what he's done that

would in any way intimate that this guy is not the one -- one of the most trustworthy people in america. >> anyef tort -- effort to go after mueller could be the beginning of the end of the trump presidency unless mueller did something wrong. >> if there was without a reason, there would be holy hell to play. >> do you think congress has any role in the special counsel. >> i don't think. so i don't have much pressure to pass anything. >> if vin scully were watching, he might tell them that in a year that has been so improbable, the impossible has happened. the president gave the order to fire mueller. so now what do they do? "the new york times" and washington post and nbc news and a lot of other news organizations are all reporting that president trump did move to fire bob mueller last june but the white house counsel don mcgahn refused to follow through. he threatened to quit if forced to do it. and the president then ultimately backed down. the president's lawyer ty cob

did not have a comment but the president had a fairly predictable reaction earlier today. >> did you want to fire robert mueller. >> fake news, folks, fake news. typical new york times fake stories. >> and then of course he decided to attack the president while speaking on the world stage. >> it wasn't until i became a politician that i realized how nasty and how mean, how vicious and how fake the press can be. as the cameras start going off in the back. >> as you saw, around the same time president trump gave the order to fire mueller, republican leaders were warning the president that a warning would blow up his presidency. but since then the fbi and the cia have been the subject of countless attacks by the president and his allies are saying they are setting a perjury trap by interviewing him and they are blasting out allegations that mueller is part

of a deep state to overthrow the president. last year when there was speculation that he might fire mueller, republicans said don't do. it we know the president actually gave that order and the republican reaction so far has been muted to say the least. folks, if all of this was a coordinated leak which is what it looks like when all of the news organizations could independently confirm the same story so quickly, you have to wonder if someone wanted to send a warning to president trump or about president trump. if that is the case, were the republicans warning him? because it is a friday or because he is overseas or so few people were surprised by this news. but folks, to put it bluntly, if the gop remains silent on the news, why would we think they would speak up the next time he decides to do this. carol lee is a reporter from nbc news. and bill crystal, the weekly standard editor at large.

carol, i will start with you. because last june all of us were pursuing this story. it was -- christopher ruddy the president's personal friend who is a publishing of a news organization openly said the president is contemplating doing this. >> very candidly, yeah. >> the white house kept denying, no he didn't order it. and now the same people who said no are saying yes. what happened. >> it is unclear exactly what happened but you hit on a very important point which is this investigation is just getting tighter and tighter and tighter and the president is in the white house and sieging and continuing to sieeethe and now there is questioning about his sitting down with the special counsel office and so it is very possible that people are nervous that he mie -- may try to do this again and he is impulsive and lashes out and people in the white house say this is a disaster for him and you could see how they want to move to cut

that off. >> bill crystal, you saw this as a leak meant to be the warning. he may have learned how much mueller knows and he soon has to agree to be interviewed and thinks firing him is refusing to talk or taking the fifth. >> yeah, i think there is too much -- there is two things. when the story broke when they said this might be happening, the white house denied it. trump denied it. people believed it. that is a mistake -- it turns ow. you shouldn't believe what donald trump said. but there are a lot of the people at the white house that reporters have learned -- they are trained to be suspicious and skeptical but not to deal with this level of flat out lying about things people know about, staffers or they may not know but then they go out and deny something when they don't know either way and now it is clear -- we know from many sources that trump gave the order, you might say don mcgahn threatened to quit, the white house counsel so it was a real story.

but the main thing i would say it -- it is a political fire storm. but compared to what? it is not because trump is irritable. he is scared of robert mueller. he is scared about what he will find and he will not testify and he wants this investigation to be stop order slowed down or impeded or made more difficult or discredit it as much as possible. so put yourself in his mind and say is it irrational to think he could do anything he can to disrupt this investigation? >> gene, and before you weigh in, i want to just put a button on this point here of how the president has been so openly mislead being this. here he is in ogdenying any of this. >> mr. president, you have thought about or considered leading the dismissal of the special counsel or anything that robert mueller could do that would send you in that direction. >> i haven't begin it any thought. i read about it from you people. you say i'm going to dismiss him. i'm not dismissing anybody. i want them to get on the with

the task but i want the senate an the house to come out with the findings. >> that is his way of denying it. but when he hear him and say it, it reads like a denial but had you hear him saying you realize he is fudging it. >> that did not sound like donald trump trying to be serious or be honest, frankly. and look, at this point his credibility is in the negative numbers. you can't believe -- >> especially on this issue. on this issue in particular. >> well on many issues. but on this issue especially. you can't take what he says at face value. these kinds of leaks and obviously there was a leak somewhere, are the way that people in the trump white house often communicate to each other and to him -- to him. especially to him. and this looks to me the way it looked to bill, like a message to him. a brush back. >> the reaction from capitol hill today has been somewhat muted, orrin hatch office re-tweeted, i headline from a comment he made in october, that

said that it was -- that offered his support for mueller. james langford said the following, the white house and the president have said repeatedly yesterday that they will comply with the special counsel investigation so i think we should take the white house at their word. it was interesting he said white house and not the president. and chuck grassley said, i just don't think the president as unpredictable as he is would fire mueller and i take the view -- directly to the president, just let this work its course. >> i would say they hope -- that he won't fire bob mueller. but the republicans, all of those clips you played, they have been on the record about what they think about this. and i think there is this -- what you have seen is just they don't want to poke him at all on this. so they've been playing games with their words on this. >> it has changed from six months ago when -- what has he done in the six month ins between. in his own whacky impulsive way, he is not stupid. he managed to get republicans on

hill in the house to attack the inquiry. >> and even credible republicans like ron johnson. >> and what we call the normal republicans who are not on the fringes to be talking about conspiracy in the fbi and the conservative echo chambers who put at the beginning, echoing the notion that the deep state is out to get trump in a way that would be incredible if you told me six or seven or eight months ago saying that routinely day after a day so he's laid ground work for firing mueller. >> and i want to pick up on what was implied, donald trump and we might think firing mueller, but donald trump has lived his whole life on one way of conducting business. buying time. right. he files a lawsuit -- you file a lawsuit he files a counter. why? buy time. he knows that doing this would be terrible for him but what would it do? it would set the investigation back at least a few weeks. a few months. it buys more time. he is the king of buying time. >> well maybe that is what he's after. this is -- this could be a

peeric purchase if there is such a thing. you know, you read this in biographies, one of the jobs of bob holderman was to listen to the crazy things that nixon said and then not do them. pay no attention to them. and look right past them. maybe somebody is afraid that kelly is going to actually take him seriously. >> well let me pause the political side of this conversation. because i have some legal questions here and as smart as all of you, you are not as smart as my next guest. ann milligram from the state of new jersey and assistant district attorney in manhattan. thanks for coming on the program. >> thank you. >> let me start with a legal question. if you order a hit, and the order is rejected, you still ordered the hit, does that make it an obstruction -- does it feed the obstruction of justice case in this scenario. >> so i think the answer here is absolutely yes.

the way it would work, even though the president ordered that mueller be fired and even though that wasn't carried out you could till have a claim for attempted obstruction of justice equal in the eyes of the law under punishment and when you look at this with the other evidence we have related to the president firing comey, the comments that he made, it certainly strengthens that part of the case as well. and so i think it is important when we think about obstruction to think about all of these individual acts as one piece of an obstruction of justice potential claim. >> well let me button inthat up. he asked comey for loyalty and asked him to drop the flynn probe and pressures to fire mccabe and pressured the members of the intel community to lean on comey to lay off of flynn. now we know the failed attempt to fire mueller. so what you are saying is you put all of this together, no individual piece, you might be able to explain away, there is only one conclusion.

>> yes. and in addition to the fact you put it altogether and also remember that you have trump's specific words asking comey to see past flynn. to stop the investigation into flynn explicitly but now a pattern. and i think what that means and why this is so problematic for the president and his legal defense team is that if there is one instance of it, and again you just went through a lot of the comments and conversations, so there isn't just one piece, but if there were just one or two pieces, it is a lot easier to defend against or explain. here we now you have another really strong piece of evidence showing that the president was trying to stop the investigation by eliminating the chief prosecutors, bob mueller. >> so you are bob mueller and you found out the guy you are investigating wants -- was trying to fire you. now, your a professional, but you have to pros -- that information is going to have an impact. it is going to have an impact -- and saying boy he doesn't want me to finish this investigation. boy, i was suspicious of x over

here and now i'm more suspicious of x. as an investigators what does this mean to him. >> bob mueller is one of the best prosecutors in the country and one of the best investigators in the country and he is as cool as can be and would take this in stride. and so i know someone like bob mueller wouldn't take it personally but i think what he would take it as, he would want that evidence from the people who have come forward to understand what was said and who said -- who did what and again it goes to the question of what was the president 's intent when he fired comey, when he tried to stop sessions from recusing, all of those pieces. so i think mueller is -- he's extraordinarily good at what he does. he will take this in stride. and i almost believe that he probably expected this or something like this. but yes, it is obviously strange to be the lead prosecutor and find out that the president of the united states has been trying to fire you. >> given that maybe it is

possible this is a -- a warning flare from somebody inside of the white house, if you are bob mueller and you want to have this interview with the president, do you speed up that process and basically say, let's just subpoena him now and get this over with? >> i wonder. i think that all of the theories that have been offered tonight are very plausible as to why this come out and i wonder if the president is about to be interviewed soon and it will come out as part of that interview. so people have told that to mueller, they understand that that information will become known to the president as soon as the president walked into an interview because this is clearly something bob mueller would ask be. there does seem to be -- it was a very quick number of large number of sources that came out saying it. if i were bob mueller, i would want the president tomorrow. because there is so much information and i would want to be able to sit and go through it all really methodically. that being said, the one caveat is that we don't know what else bob mueller is doing so what you want before you go in with the

president, who is -- the subject of this question of did he obstruct justice and potentially also will be questioned on the -- the campaign and russian interference in the election, you want to have all of your ducks in a row. >> i was going to ask. you want one interview and you want to do it all at once and not split it and do obstruction now and campaign and trump organization later? >> i see a lot of reasons why you want to split it and do multiple interviews so if you were talking about the garden variety case the short answer is you might do that. i think it is more complicated when it is the president of the united states and you already have his lawyers pushing back on having him come in. so if i were mueller, i would assume i would get one bite at the apple and try to do everything i need to do during -- or -- and particularly prioritize the things i know i need to touch on. >> an, milligram, i appreciate your perspective. >> and to the panel. >> i think the president won't give him one bite at the apple.

i believe he will give him zero bites at the apple. >> it is not the president's choice. >> it is. he could -- they could drag out the investigation and they could appeal if they wish to try, if the president should be compelled to testify and third they could subpoena him before a grand jury. then he might have to take the fifth and if -- and we could say could you imagine the president taking the fifth. that is not what he think. s. it is safer to take the fifth than to testify. >> it would be a lot -- >> so he'll conditioned republicans on the hill saying this is an unsavory investigation. >> what about the fbi agents. >> he laid the groundwork for saying something like that. it is clearly politically motivated, look at the bias, why would i sit -- >> and the only thing about that is trump's ego and he might see it as humiliating and to take the fifth. >> he belittled the hillary

clinton staffer that took the fifth. >> and by the way, he thinks he could talk his way out of anything. >> an important point. ann, you got to do the legal stuff and my panel had fun with the politics. we have to let you go. you guys get to come back. up ahead, we are on the brink of a bipartisan daca deal. maybe not. the white house though thinks so. the democrats not so much. we'll break it down just ahead. why make something this intelligent... (engine starting up) ...when it can get by on looks alone? why create something that stands out, when everyone expects you to fit in? it's simple. you can build a car, or you can build a cadillac. come in now for this exceptional offer on the cadillac cts. get this low-mileage lease on this 2018 cadillac cts from around $469 per month. visit your local cadillac dealer.

welcome back. the reckoning over alleged sexual misconduct is now focusing on casino magnet steve wynn. the "wall street journal" reports dozens of current and former employees accused the billionaire of sexually aggressive and inappropriate behavior going back decades. some say they were pressured into sex acts. win denies thele gagss say the idea that i ever assaulted any woman is preposterous.

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welcome back. the russia headlines piled up this week. the white house had one big p.r. triumph, announcing a immigration plan with support and opposition. while achieving the president's conservative priorities. it would require a number of big sessions by chuck schumer including a limit on family based migration. what republicans call chain migration. but schumer told "the new york times" podcast in an interview recorded yesterday afternoon that the white house plan, quote, will never pass. >> in the process leader mcconnell presented we'll have our own amendment that will be much less of an excruciating choice and has a much better chance of passing. we have a whole bunch of

democratic and republican moderate senators right now working on a compromise position that won't be the extreme kind of stuff that you just mentioned that the white house might put out and i think that has a very good chance of passing. >> of course we've seen this rodeo before. what can pass the senate may not be able to pass the house. joined now by a member of the bipartisan group of senators trying to find a solution. lamar alexander of tennessee. welcome back to the show. >> thank you very much. >> let me start with the white house proposal. how should we look at it. is it an opening bid in negotiations or their end point. >> it is what a president ought to do. the job of the executive is to lay out some suggestions and our job is to consider them and show respect for them. i hope we can do -- what we can do as senator schumer was saying, have our own process. senator mcconnell puts a bill down on the floor on the 8th and we'll have amendments and have 70 votes and if the president could support it, the house is

likely to pass it or more likely to pass it and the president will sign it. so that is -- the president is doing what -- if a president didn't start the process, the process usually doesn't work. >> let me restart with the sticking point that chuck schumer brought up which is the -- the family sponsorship issue. the white house wants to essentially change immigration law for everybody. i believe the previous graham-durbin proposal was just to have the limits put on the daca population. where are you on this? >> well, where i am -- you're starting at the hardest part of the problem to start. >> yes, i am. >> i would start at the easiest. i would start by saying -- let's start with two things. one, is the d.r.e.a.m.ers which is 700,000 or a white house generous estimate and giving them legal status and border security something the senate did in 2013 in a big-time way

with 20,000 new border agents and i voted for this and 700 miles of barriers. so let's tart with the smaller part. things that we could agree on and have amendments about the harder part which is how do we define what a family can do to bring other family members into the country. that is a hard set of issues. >> it does seem though that if that is not there, then the white house isn't on board with citizenship for those d.r.e.a.m.ers. >> i don't think the white house said that. i think the president said here is what i think we ought to do and that is welcome. as i said before, the job of the executive is to say i propose this. our job is to say thank you mr. president, and we respect that and now we'll go to work and see if we could come up with something you can support. >> and this is a tough vote for some because of primary politics. it is tough on the left for some, and tough on the right. i used your home state of tennessee, marshall blackburn the republican front-runner for that now open senate seat, the one bob corker is given up and she said yesterday about the

immigration proposals in yenl. there is more conversation about a path to legalization and this is why. she goes, but we do not want to see anyone get in front of people that have been going through the legal immigration process. i want down the line here, we haven't been able to find many republicans running in primaries in 2018 comfortable with supporting the president's proposal. how much could that derail this if you have conservatives who feel they can't get through primaries supporting any form of so-called amnesty. >> it will be an issue in primaries. i voted for the 2013 bill which created a legal status for 11 million people who were here illegally. said they had to pay a fine and it didn't put them in front of anybody. it did say eventually they could get a legal status, eventually they could dream of becoming a citizen. and it also solved the border problems. if we had passed the 2013 bill and made it law, we wouldn't be even having this discussion today. we had so much border security

in there people were joking about it. they were saying that there is so many border agents they could hold hands across the border. so i think it is an issue in primaries. but with appropriate border security, i think we can solve it and as far as a path to citizenship, i don't want millions of people in this country on a permanent basis who never have an opportunity to dream of pledging allegiance to the united statesism don't want them pledging of allegiance to russia or mexico or afghanistan if they are here as a legally permanent person. >> do you trust that the house -- or the senate has -- mitch mcconnell has agreed to a fairly open process on this. basically allowing this bill to almost organically happen. that doesn't happen very often in the senate. but he seems to be more open to have as open of a process as we've seen on a bill for quite sometime. democrat and republican. that isn't the way the house will work. do you think -- are you just hoping that as long as the president supports the senate bill it will get a vote in the

house? >> yes. as a short answer -- my experience is we shouldn't worry about the house. we should show respect to the house and the president but we need to do our job. we should pass a bill with border security, solve the daca problem, i would start with the most limited bill that will do that, allow a amendments and make the objective of 70 votes, not 60 because if we get to 70 we'll have republican supporting it and the president is more likely to support it and if he supports it, the house will pass it. >> you sound like you are in the mark r marco rubio camp that said don't try to make this bigger, just did border security. >> one step in the right direction is a good way to get where you want to go and you might take a second and a third and the bill put on the floor on february 8th, i hope it is limited so that it could mass even if it -- even if the amendments don't succeed. >> i want to ask you a couple of housekeeping political issues. robert mueller, you've heard the

reports your reaction to the reports that the president ordered the firing of him and then the white house counsel threatening resignation. where are you on this sir? >> i'm going to be disrespectful. there are about a half million people obsessing over these investigations. i'm not one of them. >> i understand. >> i'm not going to be clementing on what hasn't happened. we have a bipartisan senate committee and we have a respected counsel. we have a president saying he's going to cooperate with the counsel. let's see what happens. >> well does that mean you are not interested in legislation -- last june, you had thom tillis, and chris coons introduce legislation that would have some sort of production or fall back status if the president did follow through on firing mueller. do you think that is something the senate needs to think about. >> well maybe. i think the senate ought to think about how to solve the immigration problem and getting into higher education simpler and how to lower insurance premiums. that is what i'm working on and there are -- other senators

doing other things. >> do you have any respect for robert mueller. >> i think he has a good reputation or he wouldn't have been appointed. >> and you have confidence in him. >> so far i do. -- i don't point -- everything i know gives me confidence in him. >> does the rnc have a finance director and horrible reports about horrific behavior that steve wynn has been accused of. i assume the rnc shouldn't be keeping him as finance chair if these reports are confirmed? >> i assume we ought to wait and see what the reports are and whether they are true or not. before we start making comments on them. >> fair enough. senator alexander, i will leave it there. i appreciate you coming on. >> thanks very much. >> you got it. up ahead, the hill verse he is -- versus the valley. after the meddling fiasco are online giants prepared to do better in 2018. the high stakes for high-tech. next. and the wolf huffed and puffed...

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if it is sunday, it is "meet the press" and if it is friday, we promote "meet the press." we'll get into the immigration debate and go inside of the russia investigation and we'll talk with house majority leader kevin mccarthy, former defense secretary robert gates, plus west virginia senator joe mansion, democrat. we'll also join us. we'll be back in a moment. tologt about a medication, this is humira. this is humira helping to relieve my pain and protect my joints from further irreversible damage.

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welcome back. we're learning about russian operatives during the election.

there was a memo released detailing phoney events and publicized on facebook and drew 340 rsvp from users. and just under 150 million american users received russian backed content, the newly disclosed detail users -- that the willingness to take physical action at russia's direction is on another level. while facebook shared details on a particular political event created by russian operatives the volume of the instances have not been previously disclosed. tech giants who testified before congress said they don't believe they interfered in the 2017 elections but lawmakers have been unsatisfied with the responses from the tech companies and remain concerned about how they plan to combat state sponsored meddling as 2018 mid-term elections bloom. cara swisher the editor of recode and joins me now. i want to start with one aspect

of the last year. of twitter, facebook and in particular and which is everything -- their worst than politicians. i'll be honest. first it was no -- fake news had nothing. that's what mark zuckerberg said in the first month. >> no impact. >> and then it became -- no impact and then, well, dah dah dah and now it is like hey there were events and but it still feels like they are holding back. >> this is very common among internet companies in the past about -- this battery isn't this or maybe it is. some of it is they don't know. >> the breaches. it only affected these accounts. >> but i think one of the issues is they don't know. you imagine that these -- they put themselves as geniuses of all time. it is hard to discover and hard to figure out. what i think the problem is -- when they built the system in the first place they didn't ant is pace -- anticipate this.

and so when you talk about the products, they are not thinking something bad could be used. >> i had a -- -- consultant who noted how -- when facebook was facing an issue with child pornography and being used to pass it around and sell it and advertise. they had ways to shut that down. but they have the technology to root -- if they could root out the child pornography -- >> or the scammers. >> they could root out the trolls from russia and from state sponsors. is she right. >> presumably. >> aol had the same problem and no one had the impact of facebook. i think that is what is really -- it is billions of people with trillions of transactions and that is the problem. it is so enormous.

but they should have been focusing on it and had tools in place for the products an that is -- now they're completely aware of it and focused on it and finding all kinds of ways to solve it. there is not enough people on the planet because of the amount of transactions. a.i. is still not where it need to s to be and they haven't been monitoring the platform and it is still anti-semitic results and advertises. >> there is another aspect of this, her other theory was they could root it out but they don't because it is a much bigger part of their revenue than they want to admit. >> i don't know if that is the case. i think the problem is that their -- all of the businesses, all of them, not apple for example, are based on advertising and attention. and it is a slot machine of attention. so they want you to always be playing -- paying attention and engaged. my argument is that you are engaged on things that make you feel bad and it creates a cesspool. anyone -- anyone on twitter you

don't feel good -- >> sometimes. >> it doesn't feel great. >> let me know where the great stuff is these days. >> if thinking about businesses for the long-term, they have to ferret this out and make it a priority. >> i remember during the great recession and the attempt after -- after the wall street crash, and the attempt of congress to try to regulate wall street and the fact of the matter is they don't know what the hell they were doing. they don't understand what wall street did. they know it was bad. okay. i feel like we're in the same territory. as it is clear there needs to be a way to regulate these internet companies but congress doesn't -- it is not -- they have a big issue, they don't understand it. and it is okay that they don't. but if you don't understand it, how do you regulate it. >> they can't. and they are not going to by the way. it is a very slow thing. everyone said there is a digital arma getten for it to happen. but you had equifax. >> we have a digital armageddon.

>> and in privacy and in -- in manipulation of platforms in tech addiction but can the regulators -- they've passed many times on regulation. not in europe, not like others are firm around data privacy and all kinds of things, it is just the will of government to do something about this. and the knowledge to do something. >> i had somebody suggest to me that they ought to use the super fund model. meaning you basically -- you tell an equifax, okay, you got to pay a gigantic fine every time you have a breach. so that, boy, you've got to spend whatever it takes to prevent breaches and financially it is not crippling but it is painful. because then it is -- it creates some self regulation because maybe washington isn't up to speed to create regulation. >> i think the problem is this is one of the greatest industries. it is an american born industry and still controlled by american companies, all of the big tech companies are american compan s

companies, there are strong contenders from china, but they push back on if we can't innovate if we are regulated. that happens to everyone. >> everyone claims this. >> so they are welcoming regulation by not monitoring the systems properly. now the question whether it will happen now, i don't know. it seems to me that people in washington can't agree on lunch so i don't know if they will get to these people. and they are spending money. >> but you know what, they will have hearings. >> they will have hearings. >> thank you very much. and by the way, be sure to join kara and ari melber to sit down the ceo of google and youtube to talk about how we deal with the challenges we're talking about in the rapid pace of change taking place to watch revolution this sunday on msnbc. up ahead, when sentencing a sexual predator to up to 175 years in prison is not enough. o, is this for real? yep. we match all the cash back new cardmembers earn at the end of their first year, automatically. whoo! i got my money! hard to contain yourself, isn't it? uh huh! let it go!

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welcome back. tonight i'm obsessed with dr. larry nassar and the stench of the scandal surrounding u.s. m gymnastics. he had more than 150 people to could accuse the team doctor of sexual abuse. but this should not be the end of the story. the problem is not just one predator, it goes up to the top. the united states olympic committee. olympic gold medallist alli

raisman wrote they are still not acknowledging their own rule in this mess. zero accountability. it is like none of us were ever abused. if the usoc thinkss it enough for nassar to spend their life behind bars they are wrong. if they think that, they are wrong. and if they think it is enough for the entire board of the gymnastics to resign, they are wrong. today the house commerce committee announced it would investigation sexual abuse in organized sports, including the usoc and gymnastics. it is a positive first step but this is the beginning. remember the usoc exists because of an act of congress. we'll be right back. join us for exclusive discovery at sea experiences. princess cruises, come back new.

i'm actually closer to my retirement daysing. than i am my college days. i just want to know, am i gonna be okay? i know people who specialize in "am i going to be okay." i like that. you may need glasses though. schedule a complimentary goal planning session with td ameritrade. we're about a half million people obsessing over these investigations an i'm not one of them. i think bob mueller is a well respected person or the trump administration wouldn't have appointed him. he has a good reputation. >> and you have confidence in

him personally? >> so far as i know. i don't point. but -- everything i know about him gives me confidence in him. >> bill crystal? >> i -- i was i was surprised b want to say he had distance, he just wasn't going to lean in. >> and he wasn't going to say, i want to say here to president trump who might be watching as he comes back from davos, don't fire robert mueller. or i be institute legislation that will stop that. >> it would be one that you wouldn't think that would be there to have trump's back on this? >> uh-huh. >> i want to switch to these steve winn allegations. carol, after reading the story in the journal, your former employer, it was sort of -- it was the closest things we have seen yet to harvey winestein.

>> exactly. >> it but harvey is in a class by himself. but these allegations against steve winn and the specificity of them are very difficult to read. >> yeah, and i was listening to the senator earlier talk about will we have to see the stories and look at that. i have worked at "the wall street journal," i know what it takes to get a story like that through that process, i know those reporters. those stories are so detailed, they said they talked to 150 people, there were a dozen different instances that they cite and the reaction has been from the rnc to candidates who have taken money from him, just silence. >> one interesting aspect of this is that he's finance chair, the rnc comes up next week. they're close and i have no doubt steve winn is probably begging him not to dump him. >> he probably is. so who knows what he's going to

do? clearly the pliolitically right thing to do is to make sure that steve winn doesn't make it to that meeting. and ultimately i think the party is going to have to get rid of him. but i don't know what president trump will do. >> you have the rnc, the nrsc, ruby, johnson, scott, murkowski, dean heller is up for r re-electi re-election. >> a lot of the vegas casino owners. >> they play mostly on one side and then they'll do the other. >> i have gotten to the rnc meetings this week. the rnc is a legal entity, it's run by 165 members. of course president trump has a lot of sway, but there is a chair of the committee, and there is a committee.

and someone should stand up and say this guy should not be our finance chairman? >> in a normal world, steve winn is not going to be at this meeting. >> but here's the thing, every time an allegation comes up, president trump sees himself in that person. so you can't separate that from this. so it will be very interesting to see what he does in this particular case. but he just feels like he's been in their shoes, he's been on that side, we saw it with roy moore even. >> this is one of those days where we feel like we're back in december, where every hour there's a new person caught up. now we have a new hillary clinton aid, burns strider, and hillary clinton was presented with -- the campaign manager said we got to dump him, and she said no. hillary clinton having a blind spot for men behaving badly is not news. >> look, time's up. you can't -- you know, that shouldn't happen.

and so if that indeed happened, i would like to know why. i would like to know why -- >> they moved him to another entity, that was an ally of the campaign. >> he instagrammed pictures with him having lunch with her earlier this year. and, you know, i feel like -- i don't know how the clintons function as an entity inside the democratic party right now. i feel like they're becoming more and more toxic for democrats. >> largely because of this issue, distancing from bill clinton and not defending him anymore. but this is what really frustrates some women about hillary clinton is this stuff, that she's seen as swuomeone wh pr presents herself as anned advoc for women. >> this is 2008. and she -- it's possible that going through their head as well, you fire him for sexual

harassment, then i'm considered a hypocrite for sticking by my husband. you could argue that that's the trap democrats were in with the clintons for the past ten years. >> at some point that does not matter, at some point you have to do the right thing. and if -- did you know in 2008 that it was a bad thing to sexually harass -- i knew it was a bad thing. it was a bad thing then and it should have been dealt with. >> this certainly puts a wrinkle -- she has hopes of being sort of the galvanizing force for this movement these days. happy friday. the government shutdown was a monday. think about this week. up ahead, a potential game changer for young athletes.

well, on the day we find out that the nfl had more concussions recorded than ever before, it's worth telling you about this you may have missed. illinois is considering a game changer to protect kids on the field. the state has -- suffered from cte, the brain disease linked to concussions. at a news conference yesterday, the family said this legislation could save a lot of lives very early on. >> we now know with certainty that part of the solution is to

guard young children's developing brains from the dangers of tackle football. >> keep an eye on this bill, if it becomes law, many other states can get on board too, all in the name of keeping athletes safe. we may not see tackle football until high school. the beat with ari melber starts right now, good evening, ari. >> good evening chuck, and thanks very much. president trump is about to land back in washington this hour, the first time on u.s. soil since these reports that donald trump ordered the fire of special counsel bob mueller who's investigating him all the way back in june. the plan you may have heard was only stopped because of a threatened resignation from donald trump's lawyer don mcgahn. this is big. the top democrat investigating russia today says the news makes trump look guilty. >> this president has continued to say there's no there there. well he is