instant lost two mothers at the foot of the basement stairs. >> that all for this edition of "dateline." i'm craig melvin. thank you for watching. good morning. i'm dara brown in new york at msnbc world headquarters. it is 7. :00 in the east, 4:00 out west, and here's what's happening. new fallout from the explosive report that president trump wanted robert mueller fired last june. how democrats are trying to protect the special counsel. the president back in the u.s. after meeting overseas with world financial leaders. the big takeaways from his trip. direct question. stormy daniels asked about her relationship with the president. how she responded and why trump hasn't seen any repercussions from this story. and new this morning, democrats launching efforts to protect special council robert mueller in the wake of reports president trump ordered his

white house counsel to fire him back in june. "the new york times" and "washington post" report senate democrats plan to include legislation to protect mueller as part of continuing budget negotiations. republican senator lindsey graham co-sponsoring yet another measure. no reaction yet from house speaker paul ryan or senate majority leader mitch mcconnell to those reports. republican senator thom tillis, who previously co-sponsored a bill to protect mueller is backing off on his effort, telling "the daily beast" that the bill is no longer urgent. here are key democrats who sit on the congressional russia panels on msnbc last night. >> the president has to be sent the message that there will be a firestorm, that republicans and democrats will join together in the kind of reaction that followed the saturday night massacre. >> why are so many people threatening to resign? because there is a pattern of obstruction of justice. donald trump tried to get michael flynn's investigation dropped. he then fired the fbi director.

he then tried to fire the deputy fbi director. and then he tried to get his own attorney general to resign. and now we know he tried to get robert mueller fired. this is a pattern. >> the fact that the president wanted so badly to get rid of jeff sessions and why? because jeff sessions recused himself. and why did that bother the president? because it led to the appointment of bob mueller. >> msnbc's kristen welker has more on why the white house is fighting back on the reports which overshadowed the president's trip to davos. >> reporter: in davos, president trump lashing out at reports he ordered the firing of special counsel robert mueller last june. >> fake news, folks, fake news. >> reporter: a source with firsthand knowledge of the matter tells nbc news mr. trump ultimately backed down when his white house counsel, don mcgahn, threatened to quit over it, saying the move would be catastrophic. the news first reported by "the new york times" said it all happened amid the first reports mueller was looking into a possible obstruction case. the white house on defense.

>> we know that the president is not considering firing mueller. we want to find an end to this investigation. >> reporter: democrats pounced, renewing calls for a bill aimed at protecting the special counsel. >> we've seen a pattern of behavior of him going after people that are related to this investigation. >> reporter: president trump has long denied he ever considered firing mueller. >> i haven't given it any thought. i mean, i've been reading about it from you people. you say, oh, i'm going to dismiss him. no, i am not dismissing anybody. >> are you considering firing robert mueller? >> no, not at all. no, i'm not. >> reporter: but his closest advisers had a different take. >> i think he's considering perhaps terminating the special counsel. i think he's weighing that option. >> reporter: the president's frustration with the russia investigation reached a fever pitch last june when he ordered that mueller be fired. june 6th, president trump was infuriated when his attorney general recused himself from the russia probe. two days later, june 8th, former

fbi director james comey testified on capitol hill mueller could be looking at an obstruction case. and june 14th, another bombshell. various news outlets confirmed mueller is looking into possible obstruction of justice by the president himself. >> in a case like this, you need to look at lots and lots of individual acts -- firing jim comey, ordering the firing of bob mueller. you take all of the acts together, and it begins to become more clear that it is obstruction. >> reporter: the president just back from davos overnight. now he'll have to confront these new developments. so far, the president's legal team says it's made at least 47 people available to mueller for an interview with negotiations ongoing about a possible interview of the president himself, do himself, dara. >> let's bring in shawn sullivan with the "washington post" and jonathan allen, political reporter for nbc news digital. great to have you both here. >> good morning. >> jonathan, after the mueller story, what are you hearing from

people in the white house about the mood? one report suggests the president's aides are still worried he will fire mueller. what are you hearing? >> well, i think there's a certain unpredictability to the president that makes his aides somewhat concerned about what he might do at any given time, but it sounds like he has been disabused of this notion that he can fire robert mueller. he already fired jim comey, which got him in a lot of trouble. it's been reported in the past that steve bannon thinks that was the worst decision he's ever made. reince priebus, the white house chief of staff, and bannon both opposed the idea of firing mueller way back when. you know, there's a concept that sort of undergirds american democracy, which is that the president of the united states is not above the law. it differentiates us from dictatorships and from kingdoms in the past. and i think when you start firing all the people who are investigating you as president, it really runs counter to that, and i think everybody sort of understands that, except maybe at times the president. >> let's talk about that law.

shawn, what is conventional legal wisdom on this mueller firing story? if president trump really ordered mueller to be fired, is that clear obstruction among legal minds? >> you know, it seems like there is a debate about that, but it's ground, i think, that democrats and even many republicans are hoping, especially on capitol hill, that they never have to consider in this case, you know. we've seen over the past few months in both parties lawmakers say this would be a step too far, if the president did this, regardless of whether it legally meets the requirements for obstruction of justice. and so, we've seen democrats and republicans both say, you know, we may need to take steps to try to prevent this. but what's interesting is in the last 24 to 48 hours, we have not really heard an outcry from congressional republicans. we've heard from democrats saying we need to redouble our efforts and try to take steps in congress to protect mueller, but we haven't really heard that from republicans. we haven't really heard a lot of alarm publicly from a lot of republicans on capitol hill about this development. >> and jonathan, i want to ask you about the party lines.

does this mueller story change the narrative for the president politically? are republicans inclined to abandon him if they do realize that he ordered mueller's firing? >> it doesn't appear that way. as sean was just saying, the republicans don't seem to be particularly alarmed. and one of the reasons may be that the president himself has said repeatedly that he's not considering firing mueller since that period last june where he was, obviously, actively considering it. and you know, i mean, if he were to fire mueller, the question would no longer be for members of congress whether or not they support donald trump's presidency, it would be whether they support the presidency. >> and sean, just a day before these reports came out, ty cobb was pushing back after president trump told reporters that he's looking forward to testifying with mueller's team and would do so under oath. what is the likely scenario here that president trump talks to mueller under oath, and if not, what are the other options? >> yeah, we'll have to wait and see. i mean, i think we've seen some

mixed signals out of the white house about this from the president, from his staff, from his aides. i mean, what's been clear in this investigation in the past few months when you look at who the special counsel is interviewing, what they're looking at, is this investigation is getting closer and closer to the president himself. he's been -- you know, mueller's team has been interviewing top aides, top former aides, people who we're really seeing were individuals in the campaign and in the white house. and so, that is one of the biggest remaining questions is when and if he will be able to talk to the president himself, what information he might potentially get out of that, and what the terms of that conversation might be. we still don't know, really, exactly how that's going to shake out right now. >> so many questions here. jonathan, earlier this week, the government shutdown ended with the democrats getting at least a bit of a concession from the gop on daca. who won in this shutdown showdown, democrats or republicans, and could you explain why? >> sure, i think that the president and republicans won in the shutdown showdown in that

they basically didn't have to yield to the policy demand that democrats had made, which was to basically deal on immigration before they open the government. blame game is a different question. the politics of this poll show that more of the public blames republicans or donald trump. you know, it's often tested separately, than blaming democrats. but for the time being, i think the president was able to go reload with a new immigration proposal that makes some concessions to democrats but still has some pieces in there regarding the legal immigration system that they are not thrilled with. >> and john, what do you think, do you see anything moving forward here? do you think there will be a daca deal that would satisfy mostly everyone? >> you know, it's going to be very, very difficult for a deal to get done in the near future. immigration is such a divisive issue between the two parties right now, and we're seeing that play out this week. i mean, the president and the white house released their framework to congressional

lawmakers saying, hey, here's the kind of bill that we would want to sign, let's work on this. but we've seen a backlash. we've seen a backlash not only from democrats in the house and senate, but we've also seen a backlash from hard right republicans and conservatives who say, hold on, this bill is too much of a concession. so there is a lot of disagreement between and among the two parties about what an immigration deal should look like, and even though we're seeing a lot of bipartisan talks right now, i think the reality is, it's going to be very, very difficult to get a deal done on this issue. lawmakers have tried, you know, many times over the years. they tried in 2013 to get a comprehensive bill. they failed. and so, there's a lot of reasons right now i think to be skeptical that any kind of deal on immigration is going to get done this year. >> and not a lot of time to get that done. sean sullivan, jonathan allen, stick around. we have much more to talk about on this saturday. well, america is open for business, and that is the message from president trump, but how did the people at the global economic summit take that message, and why did they boo the president at one point? shawn evans: it's 6 am. 40 million americans are waking up to a gillette shave.

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had the opposing party to me won, some of whom you backed, some of the people in the room, instead of being up almost 50%, the stock market is up since my election almost 50%, rather than that, i believe the stock market from that level, the initial level, would have been down close to 50%. that's where we were headed. i really believe that. >> president trump presenting his explanation for the soaring stock market, at the same time taking shots at business elites who did not support his 2016 campaign as he addressed the world economic forum in switzerland. my next guest says it was a swiss shocker that trump didn't bomb at davos. joining me now is christopher dickey, foreign editor with "the daily beast" and msnbc

contributor. christopher, why do you say this was a shocker? >> well, i think people expected that trump was going to go into the lion's den, he was going to be facing a lot of people who are very hostile to him. i'm not sure why people thought that, just because there's a lot of talk about globalization at davos traditionally, and he's seen as more of an isolationist. those are issues, but in fact, people were very receptive to him. the billionaires, especially, the very rich businesspeople who were there, they have been able to line their pockets, or will be, with the enormous corporate tax cut that he was able to push through congress with the gop, so they were quite receptive to his message that america is open for business. there were other people there working for non governmental organizations, the press, and maybe some even involved with the world economic forum, who were not so positive. for the core audience, the world economic elite, most of them were reasonably receptive to his

message. >> christopher, there was a point where the president was booed. what were the boos about? >> oh, he started to talk -- it was his pro forma remarks about fake news during a dialogue with claude schwab up on the central stage. apparently some of the people booing were members of the press. some others were probably members of those nongovernmental organizations. there were some billionaires who were hostile to him. george soros declared that he was trying to create a mafia state. but i think the booing was a very minor incident that was blown out of proportion by a lot of headlines around the world. >> christopher, has the president set such a low bar with his combative, at times belligerent, style, that he won over the room by merely sticking to the script? >> you know what, i think that that's something that he's doing not only at davos. i think people are getting used

to trump, for better or worse. personally, i think for worse, but they are getting used to him, and the bar is set very low. if he doesn't do something absolutely outrageous, then people go, well, he's really kind of normal. and i think there was some of that sentiment at davos. >> and the president didn't deliver any of the antiglobalist or antielitist rhetoric that he's used in the past. he seemed to shift his tone, coming close to an apology for retweeting a british racist group and even floating the idea of rejoining the trans-pacific partnership. what do you make of this change? >> well, in terms of the racist british group, he did sort of quasi apologize to piers morgan about that, who had been a big booster of trump and had criticized him for it. but the truth is that it's only very recently that trump took down those tweets. they were up for weeks after it was known that this was a racist group and that one of those particular tweets was completely

bogus. so, that's typical of trump. when it comes to the -- what was the other question? i'm sorry. what was the second part of that question, dara? >> the second part was that, you know, he has won the group over by sticking to the script. has that changed? i mean, has he really won people over by he is sticking to what is written for him instead of going off of the script? >> well, you know, he's given several speeches where he was reading from a teleprompter and they were reasonable language, sometimes very well-crafted language. the danger with trump is always that he'll get on to twitter at some ungodly hour and tweet out something outrageous or retweet something like those racist tweets from great britain. but he was a good boy at davos, and he was being flattered constantly. when he was introduced, there was a brass band, like something out of the nixon era.

in fact, a lot of people see emmanuel macron, the president of france, as kind of the anti-trump, but macron has learned how to flatter trump and get along with him, and even talks about the great relationship they have, which is underscored by the fact that macron would pay the first state visit of any world leader to washington under trump. >> and american presidents have traditionally stayed away from the davos meeting, avoiding the look of jet setting with the world's richest, but president trump went. what will the u.s. gain from this trip? >> well, i think it was -- if you listen to his speech, which was actually much shorter than people expected -- it was only about 20 minutes -- it was basically a boiler plate chamber of commerce speech. america's open for business. you know, america first but not america alone. and the stock market is soaring, unemployment is down. these, of course, are trends that were well established well

before he became president, but presidents do take credit for what happens when they're president. and of course, it could all be destroyed overnight as we saw in 2008 or when the dotcom bubble burst. but right now he's saying there's less regulation, lower taxes, come to america, do business, hire people, and that's a message that a lot of people at davos will respond to. more importantly, it's a message that his core supporters in the united states will hear like a symphony. >> christopher dickey, always great to have you. thanks so much for joining us this morning. and coming up, porn star stormy daniels is asked if she really had an affair with president trump. catch that moment, up next. rty e when this guy got a flat tire in the middle of the night. hold on dad... liberty did what? yeah, liberty mutual 24-hour roadside assistance helped him to fix his flat so he could get home safely. my dad says our insurance doesn't have that. don't worry - i know what a lug wrench is, dad. is this a lug wrench? maybe?

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now back to politics. new reaction from the adult film star president trump allegedly had an affair with ten years ago and who was allegedly paid to keep quiet about it by the president's lawyer. >> reporter: did you have a sexual relationship with donald

trump? have you been paid to keep quiet? have you signed a nondisclosure agreement? are you frustrated that you can't talk about these things? you clearly want to say -- you're looking at me like you can't talk. i'm taking this that you can't say anything. is that accurate? i'm taking that as a yes. >> okay, then. let's bring in sean sullivan with bloomberg tv and jonathan allen, national political reporter for msnbc news digital. sean, president trump seems to be weathering these types of allegations rather easily without getting dinged. is that the case, or do you think there will be repercussions down the line? >> well, there could be repercussions down the line, we'll see, but what's striking right now is when you look at his support from christian conservative leaders and evangelical leaders, that support still remains pretty strong. and in fact, one prominent christian conservative even said, you know, effectively, look, we're going to give the

president a do-over on this. and so, i think that is one of the striking things that you see in this situation is that you have the president and you have the support from christian conservative leaders. and you know, even if he has behaved in a way, allegedly, that is at odds with what they're advocating, they'll continue to support him so long as he promotes the policies on social issues, particularly abortion, that they want to see. >> and these issues were actually there during the race, so before he was president, so we continue with this. and jonathan, our colleague, alex witt's interview with reverend franklin graham last week sparked the national conversation about the evangelical community essentially giving him that pass. is this unconditional support of president trump more about politics than morals? >> you know, the porn star mulligan is a new concept in religion, regardless of which religion you're from. but yeah, i think sean's right. i mean, ultimately, this comes down to president trump

basically being on the right side on abortion i think for a lot of these religious leaders. and in addition to that, you've also got a case where they have continued to support him through so many different allegations that you wonder what could possibly come out that would change that view. they're sort of dug in. you know, if they say stormy daniels is the straw that broke the camel's back, well, what about all of the allegations of sexual misconduct, you know, as opposed to consensual relationship here? so, they're kind of backed into a corner because there's no new news or they see very little that would make them abandon him, and they have to look back and think they should have done so earlier, if they get to a point where they would. >> jonathan, i think you coined a new phrase there with that porn star mulligan. that's a new one for a saturday morning. jonathan allen, thank you so much. sean sullivan, great to have you here this morning. gentlemen, always a pleasure. >> thanks. >> thanks. >> and that will do it for me. i'm dara brown. thanks for watching this

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good morning! coming up on msnbc's "your business," the musical group the jonas brothers have stopped touring. so, once manager dad is now using his skills to open a hometown restaurant. we'll tell you what the owner of this old-school camera store did to pivot from a product-based to a service-based business model in order to survive. and the creators of a high-tech safe try to lock up our judges' approval with another elevator pitch from the consumer electronics show. let's work fast and grow smart. that's all coming up next on "your business." ♪ >> announcer: "your business" is sponsored by american express open, helping you get business done.