eastern with stephanie ruhle. you can find me all over social media. thank you for watching. have a great weekend. deadline white house with nicolle wallace starts right now. >> hi, everyone. it's 4:00 in new york. what was carter page doing on the trump campaign in the first place? a memo declassified by donald trump over the objections of his own fbi director who warned of grave consequence today reveals that one-time trump campaign aide carter page was of such concern to the nation's law enforcement and intelligence agencies that a court reauthorized a warrant to surveil him at least three times, including twice while donald trump was president. the memo also reveals that one of the men who authorized the surveillance of page is deputy attorney general rod rosenstein. this is significant because donald trump is a man with a single mission in the words of one trump confidant, derail mueller, the best way to do that, fire the man who oversees the mueller investigation.

that would be rod rosenstein. the memo is being used by the president to smear the fbi and justice department. >> i think it's terrible. you want to know the truth? i think it's a disgrace what's going on in this country. i think it's a disgrace. the memo was sent to congress, it was declassified. congress will do whatever they're going to do. but i think it's a disgrace what's happening in our country. and when you look at that, and you see that and so many other things, what's going on, a lot of people should be ashamed of themselves, and much worse than that. so, i sent it over to congress. they will do what they are going to do, whatever they do is fine. it was declassified. and let's see what happens. but a lot of people should be ashamed. thank you very much. >> are you not concerned the fbi -- >> thank you very much. >> [ inaudible ]. >> you figure that one out. >> we'll get to that, which is a disgrace later. but a former top intelligence

official under democratic and republican presidents telling me today that the president revealed sources and methods, cherry picked information, and exposed one of the country's most effective tools for fighting terrorism and espionage for his own political and legal interests. he also explained to me that a fisa application is typically 40 to 50 pages long and relies on multiple and fruitful streams of intelligence. if it was used, the steele dossier would have made up a small fraction of the information to make the case for ongoing surveillance of page. the source explained the incredibly high bar for renewing a surveillance application on a u.s. citizen three times, suggesting that he was obviously of ongoing concern to u.s. counter intelligence investigations. he summed up his exasperation with the release of classified information by asking, where was the dni and the rest of the national security establishment? a question a lot of people are asking this hour. we're going to take you through the much balihooed memo release,

what it means for the russia investigation and discuss potential resignations or firings of senior d.o.j. or fbi leadership. let's get right to it with our experts. jeremy bash, former chief of staff at both the cia and pentagon. now an msnbc national security analyst. matt miller, former chief spokesman for the justice department in the obama administration, now an msnbc justice and security analyst. chuck rosenberg, a former u.s. attorney who has worked on the staffs of both robert mueller and james comey at the fbi and is now an msnbc contributor. and with us on-set, nbc's ken dilanian and strategist steve schmidt. jeremy bash, let me start with you on this idea that carter page, who we know was first surveilled in 2013, at least two to three years before he ended up in the trump orbit and years before the steele dossier ever existed, just talk about carter page being in the center of a big, big political distraction,

a movement to smear the fbi which may have the effect of creating a smoke screen so he can do what he really wants to do, which is to get rid of the guy overseeing the mueller probe. >> i think it is important to call it, we all remember that the mueller investigation really had its origins in july of 2016 when after papadopoulos was basically approached by russian intelligence handlers, the investigation, the counter intelligence investigation of the trump campaign kicked off. so, the fact that a fisa application was made in october 2016 shows that that application was not the basis for the mueller investigation. i think it's important also to note, nicolle, that this memo released today by nunes is totally incomplete. it cherry picks all kinds of information. it doesn't say what other information the fisa court relied on. and i also think its revelation is dangerous. for the first time the russians now know the precise dates that carter page was under electronic surveillance. and if he was their probable

agent which is what the court found, they know when their communications with him -- to him were discovered by u.s. law enforcement. >> and chuck rosenberg, i'm guessing that you either turned in fisa applications or you helped submit the kind of intelligence that would have gone on an application. can you just do a brief explainer, what is the fisa court, what is the bar for surveilling a u.s. citizen, and why would someone want to continue to listen to someone like carter page? >> well, nicolle, you're right. when i worked for bob mueller at the fbi post 9/11, one of my jobs was to review all of the fisa applications before the director certified it, before the a.g. signed it, before it was taken to a federal district court judge for his or her review. and so right there in my answer you can see it's a pretty folsom process. the standard is probable cause. it's the same probable cause you would need, more or less, if you were in criminal court seeking a search warrant for a bank robber. here in the foreign intelligence

surveillance court, we're simply looking at whether or not a u.s. citizen -- in this case carter page -- is probably an agent of a foreign power, and whether the surveillance will yield information that shows that. it's really -- >> to be reauthorized three times, it probably had to show that carter page was acting as an agent of a foreign power, right? >> that's exactly right. in between application one and two, you have more information that is acting in that way. between application two and three, even more. so on and so forth. so, really pretty straightforward stuff, nicolle. >> team schmidt, how stupid are they? do any of them read -- what they just revealed -- i'm sorry if i'm getting this wrong. they just revealed the trump campaign hired an agent of a foreign power as their senior foreign policy advisor to the president's campaign. >> they sure did. look, i don't think -- >> that's what happens when you rely on devin nunes as your strategist, i guess.

>> when you saw the president earlier in the oval office, what he did essentially was toss up a serve like a volleyball out over the net, which will now be spun into all manner of conspiracy theories -- >> a ball or a bomb? >> by the right wing media that will spin offer in 100 different directions. all of this -- and i think it's much less important to focus on what's in the memo than it is to focus on the intent of the memo. >> right. >> the intent of the memo is to sow confusion and chaos around the material facts of the russia investigation, which is, did somebody or peoples on the trump campaign, maybe with the knowledge of the president, maybe without, we'll find out, collude with intelligence officers of the russian federation to influence the outcome of the election. we know that the russians tried to cause chaos in the election,

to discredit american institutions in the eyes of the american people. we know that senior trump campaign officials, including the son-in-law of the son of the campaign chairman, met with russian officials. how deep did it go? what did people know? when did they know it? >> right. >> all of that is yet to come, and when it comes, the release of this memo, the purpose of it is to spin as much smoke as they can possibly be made to obscure at all. >> i think, matt miller, i think what they did was to clear a little bit of smoke around carter page and tell all of us that he was known to have been under surveillance under these very high standards that jeremy and chuck have spoken to since 2013. so, let's go through some of the substance of the memo, because i think they could have used a press person like you or me to help them. it doesn't look like it got fact checked. so the memo alleges -- this was written by the nunes staff in close contact, i'm told, with

the trump white house. the memo alleges that a dossier compiled on trump by christopher steele was the key part of information to show the fisa court to gain approval for surveillance of carter page. now, it's my understanding that it was just one of many streams that a fisa warrant is not granted based on a single piece of evidence from anyone, and that lots of streams of evidence -- if you're dealing with informants, many of them have questions about credibility, but that's why the court takes all that into consideration. and this would have been a fraction of the information they looked at. >> yeah, i think that's exactly right, nicolle. one of the things about this memo that's incredible is not only is it misleading because of what it leaves out, for example, other evidence that we know from other reporting the department of justice submitted to the fisa court. even in the substance of the memo that it includes, in several cases it gets facts wrong or mischaracterizes them. for example, you know, it makes a claim about andy mccabe saying that without the steele dossier,

this fisa application never would have been approved. adam schiff is already out saying that's not what director mccabe said. i think it's interesting the memo doesn't quote him. it describes what he said. if they actually -- if he actually said it you would have seen a direct quote from him. it mischaracterizes something that jim comey said saying that he described the dossier as salacious and unverified when in fact when he said that in congressional testimony, he was talking just about the most salacious piece of the dossier. >> right. >> i think you know what i'm referring to. >> right. all of the money, not the sex. we're talking about the sex. >> yeah -- >> i don't know. >> that's exactly right. it is a sloppy document, even in the part that it includes, let alone what it leaves out. but i think that does get you back to this point that steve schmidt was raising which is it's not compelling in the real world. it's not factual and substantive in the real world. that us didn't mean it won't achieve its purpose in the right

wing conservative world. in donald trump's mind does this give him the political space to move on rod rosenstein, to move on the underlying investigation as he seems to want to do. >> all right. so, let me give you another piece of this, ken dilanian. it also, the memo released today declassified by the president over the objections of the director of the fbi who had grave concerns, also alleges that information to the court did not reveal that the fusion gps generated dossier was financed by the dnc and the clinton campaign. now, the truth is that the original fusion gps contract was under big republican donor paul singer, and it was i think an intermediary, a conservative website, the free beacon. i understand christopher steele wasn't involved until the fusion gps contract had been taken over by the clinton campaign. even it would seem like their strongest point, they don't really stick to the facts. >> and there is a dispute about it because what democrats seem to be suggesting is that it was

disclosed, it was funded by political opponents of donald trump, just not named hillary clinton or the democrats. under the rules they don't name people. that could be an example of where this is deeply misleading, because analysts have said as long as they said this is information that's coming from people who don't like donald trump, they're covered there. but just stepping back, look, as a journalist i found this to be deeply disappointing because it's essentially a bust. because it does not speak to the central issue, which is the mueller investigation. it doesn't explain how carter page fits in at all to the mueller investigation. and also don't forget, republicans were suggesting this was essentially the fruits of the poisonous tree, right? if the steele dossier got the whole thing started, then the mueller investigation is invalid. but this memo disproves that. as jeremy said, it shows the investigations are months before and was related to the papadopoulos, that had nothing to do with the steele dossier. that is in there to the last paragraph and in a snarky way,

tried to suggest pete strzok was in there. it goes on and on about carter page but doesn't explain how carter page is relevant to the overall investigation. >> jeremy, what this seems to do, no matter what he did in the hotel room in russia, they have a list of names that i think donald trump is actually fired everybody on it except rod rosenstein. so, just reaffirms their bias against the people that donald trump rails on. but to the 67% of americans who are either deep skeptics of his presidency who are wondering what he's up to, it is proof positive that he had someone who was known by counter intelligence agencies to be an agent of a foreign power on his campaign. he brought him in or he was planted in that campaign. and i remember the first time you posited that, i burst out laughing. i said, what are you talking about? you've now got manafort who was doing business with pro-putin oligarchs. you've got carter page who since

2013 has been surveilled as part of our counter intelligence efforts to protect this country. and you've got a memo with basically a trump enemy's list, and what makes them all enemies is they found out about it. >> yeah, maybe i'll state it in a little plainer way, nicolle. four times a federal court found that donald trump's foreign policy advisor was a russian spy. and so if you just think about that, it shows you how irresponsible the trump campaign was even at vetting its own people. and i just want to hammer this point home. revealing this memo today is dangerous. it undermines the work of the fbi. it telegraphs precisely to the russian federation, i guarantee you this memo will be translated in russian within a matter of minutes, telegraphs exactly to them how we undertake fisa applications, what's involved in them, who approves them, the dates of this one. this is very damaging to our counter intelligence efforts. >> and, chuck rosenberg, that's how it was explained to me by a former top official in

intelligence agencies in democratic and republican administrations. he said that revealing sources and methods is bad, that revealing and showing the machineations of one of our most effective tools is something far worse. that this really shows our hand. i want to get you to respond to that, but i want to ask you something else. on the dossier, it seems to me that the way trump's allies will use this is to make it about the dossier. but the truth about the dossier is that about a third of it has borne out. about a third of it is still being investigated. and about a third of it is, you know, the more salacious things that i think the fbi or anyone investigating or mueller, whoever is looking at it, would want to corroborate with multiple sources. but not one thing has been disproven. >> uh-huh, that's right. and maybe i can give you a criminal context to this because if i was a federal prosecutor for a long time. nicolle, if we could draw for our pool of informants only from

nunns and librarians, that would be awesome. that's not the way the world works. so, who knows bad stuff in drug cases or gun case ands bank robberies? it tends to be other criminals. informants come in all shapes and sizes. they often have motives or biases. that's not unusual. in federal judges who review these affidavits know that. now, if you really want us to assess the affidavit, then you can either give us all of the underlying materials and we can read it, or you can give us sort of a one-sided memo that looks like it was written by an under achieving first year law student. and so this is not the way we should be trying to determine whether what was presented to a federal judge was adequate or not. this just misses the mark. and as you point out, it's quite dangerous. it harms our national security mission. >> matt miller, you wrote an op-ed. this is the most inappropriate action since the comey firing. at president trump's decision to release house intel committee

devin nunes's memo alleging wrongdoing at the justice department combined with his ill-advised decision, represents the most unethical and potentially legal action he's taken since he fired fbi director james comey. and like the comey decision it may now feature prominently in the obstruction of justice investigation dogging trump's white house. michael schmidt of "the new york times" made a similar point last night. we know that bob mueller is looking very closely at donald trump's conduct in office. you'd think that if the top law enforcement official warns you against doing something, that you might take that under consideration. no? >> yeah, that's right. i mean, look, every time -- i should put it this way. we've seen a pattern of donald trump having really inappropriate interactions with senior federal law enforcement officials, with the attorney general, with the deputy attorney general, with the current fbi director, the former fbi director, the former fbi deputy director. you can go down the list. and what matters is his motive when he has these interactions. and here with the release of this memo, we know what his

motives are because he's been clear about it. he's telegraphed publicly and he said to a number of aides privately that he wanted this memo released because he sees it as a pretext to move on rod rosenstein potentially to fire him. we don't know if he'll do it or not. again, that's clearly what he hopes to accomplish doing this. i think authorizing the public release of the memo, he's probably safe. it was served up to him in an official process from congress. but it's his intervention with the justice department. it's him sending his chief of staff to really berate the attorney general for his involvement, to berate the deputy attorney general for opposing the release of this memo. you see again another inappropriate interaction that it wouldn't surprise me if bob mueller looks at. >> all right. no one is going anywhere. when we come back, doing putin's bidding. that's how one u.s. senator describes the memo released to raising concerns about threats to fire mueller. and post-memo national security in the time of trump, when a grave warning from the nation's top law enforcement official is

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i think it's terrible. you want to know the truth? i think it's a disgrace what's going on in this country. i think it's a disgrace. >> are you going to fire rosen stein? >> you figure that one out. >> you figure that one out. for weeks it's been no secret that the president wants to fire rod rosen stein and seize

control of the investigation. the release of the nunes memo may have been a giant step toward that goal. democratic leaders writing in a letter to the president today, quote, we are alarmed by reports you may intend to use this misleading document as a pretext to fire deputy attorney general rod rosen stein. in an effort to corruptly influence or impede special counsel bob mueller's investigation. we write to inform you that we would consider such an unwarranted action as an attempt to obstruct justice in the russia investigation. firing rod rosenstein, d.o.j. leadership or bob mueller could result in a constitutional crisis the likes of which we have not seen since the saturday night massacre. jeremy, matt, chuck, ken and steve are all here. chuck, i want to start with you and ask you what would happen from a process and procedure standpoint does rachel grand step -- if he fired rod rosenstein, who would take over control of the mueller investigation and would that person have to be confirmed by the senate? >> he could make somebody

else -- the president could make somebody else the acting deputy attorney general. rachel brand is third in line so she would be a logical choice. the way you have to analyze this, though, it's the same analysis we used about jim comey's firing. the president has authority to remove people who he thinks are under performing. but that obviously wasn't the reason he fired jim comey. he told lester holt he fired him because of the russia thing. so, it looks to me like that firing was an act of obstruction. this firing could be, too. if he really truly believes rod rosenstein isn't doing his job, then he can remove him. but again, that's not why he would be doing it. he would be doing it, as you said, to take control of the russia investigation and that's dangerous. >> so, jeremy bash, there are so many people -- there are so many witnesses -- i've had so many sources tell me that donald trump's obsession is in removing d.o.j. leadership and taking control of the mueller investigation. whether that means firing him or simply having someone to, i

don't know what he thinks, strip him of his budget. there would be no shortage of witnesses to come into bob mueller's room where all of his investigators are to hear from source after source after source about what donald trump thinks of the russia investigation. how is that not blatant intent to obstruct an investigation? >> yeah, i think the facts are clear. the question is on the law, can a president basically squelch an investigation into himself if he doesn't like the job the investigators are doing. that's i think the tricky legal question i think could be litigated when the president is asked to sit for an interview and this could get litigated up to the supreme court, nicolle. >> let me put up for you, steve schmidt, all of the signatures that were disclosed in today's memo release to have signed off on fisa applications. so, the nunes memo reveals jim comey who signed off on one of the carter page warrants. he was fired.

sally yates, former acting attorney general, she was fired. dana buente, am i saying that right, check? >> ben tway. >> andy mccabe was asked to step down. if you listen to donald trump jr.'s musings on fox news, fired. rods rosenstein, question mark. what does this paint for you in terms of a president for whom there are no guardrails? typically the guardrails inside a west wing would be a white house counsel, don mcgahn would have been involved. i'm not sure from any press accounts what his role was in any of this. but in a normal white house, when comey and mueller and wray all threatened to resign over the bedside intervention with then attorney general ash croft, the white house counsel was involved, the national security advisor was involved. you've heard nothing of don mcgahn or h.r. mcmaster getting involved. where do any of them come down on the release of classified information over the objection of a sitting fbi director? >> well, again, look, it's a

remarkable moment. let's look, though -- let's step back to the fundamental question that we are talking around the edges of, which is this. that the man who walked into the house chamber the other night walked in there as president of the united states. he is the head of the executive branch, one of three co-equal branches of government in a nation of laws where nobody is above the law. he didn't walk into that chamber as an emperor or a king. even the president in this country is accountable before the law. and so this investigation and his obvious attempts to derail it, to smear individuals who spent their entire life in service to the country in these law enforcement organizations, and to attack the concept of fairness in the american justice system -- >> right.

>> -- the way that he did today -- now, for those of us at a certain age, we remember the big nothing burger of geraldo and al capone's safe. it's a big nothing. the difference is when geraldo opened the safe and there was nothing there, back in those days there wasn't a tv network dedicated to telling you that, in fact, there was great treasure in the empty safe. >> yeah. >> and so now there is. and so enough has been transmitted on this that he's going to characterize it as a disgrace. we're not talking about what's in it because it's really nothing. >> we just went through that for our viewers. i mean, you know, i don't think we missed much. let me pickup on that with you, ken. geraldo was on sean hannity's show. i understand the two men are friends. gosh, sean, if you were in the media when nixon was president, he never would have been impeached. if he had you, he would have served out his whole term.

this idea that with a media -- a wing of the media -- state-run media essentially functioning to sort of obscure and cover up and distort the reality, how does an fbi -- how does the fbi protect the fisa process moving forward from a president totally willing to declassify and hand over to fox news -- by the way, fox news got this before any other news organization. so, there wasn't even a pretense of releasing the memo for the public good or for all citizens. simply to the viewers of fox news. >> so, what you're describing, you're going to have an intelligence community hunkered down now, worried about who he can trust with classified information on the hill, in the executive branch. but i think steve is absolutely right. donald trump has succeeded here. house republicans, we can all call it a bust and analyze the heck out of it, the bottom line is 30, 40% of the population that wants to hear this, a top secret document they want the mueller investigation invalid, they've got that. he can use the pretext to fire

rod rosenstein or say he refuses to talk to robert mueller, he won't sit down because the investigation is biased. for him this is a great day. >> matt miller, i saw you shaking your head. >> yeah. look, i think that's exactly right. for him this is a great day. it gets back to this question of whether it's enough for him to justify, not from a substantive standpoint, but justify removing rod rosen stein or not. you asked who can replace him. you're right, rachel brand is the natural person. i think she is someone who those of us who want to see the rule of law fairly enforced would have faith in. but he doesn't have to pick her. he doesn't have to pick someone from inside the justice department. donald trump can reach across the government and pick any senate confirmed person and put him in the job of deputy attorney general. scott pruitt, for example. that person within that job would have the authority not necessarily to fire bob mueller. that may be too obvious even for the president at this point. but he could curtail the investigation by refusing to approve new lines of inquiry, by

refusing to approve indictments that mueller wants to bring. he could even step into the investigation and order bob mueller to stop pursuing the investigation with the president, something we know the president and his lawyers are very worried about. >> jeremy bash, something else the president is worried about is his personal, his family finances. he said in an interview with "the new york times" maggie haberman, i believe peter baker that could be a red line. can you imagine a scenario where he puts in someone to red line the mueller probe? second question to you, would mueller be responsive to someone put in after someone like rod rosenstein was fired to draw parameters around the investigation? >> you know, the memo that sets up the special counsel says that bob mueller can investigate any matters that arise. and so pretty broad, bob mueller will follow the facts wherever they go. >> all right. we have to sneak in one more break. my thanks to jeremy bash, matt miller, chuck rosenberg and ken dilanian. when we come back, will donald trump's members in congress pay

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don't stop now, it's easy to add to the routine. join energy upgrade california and do your thing. t a statement earlier today putting the news into some much needed context. quote, the latest attacks on the fbi and department of justice serve no american interests -- no party's, no president's, only putin's. the american people deserve to know all the facts surrounding russia's ongoing efforts to subvert our democracy, which is why special counsel mueller's investigation must proceed unimpeded. our nation's elected officials including the president must stop looking at this investigation through the warped lens of politics and manufacturing partisan side shows. if we continue to undermine our rule of law, we are doing putin's job for him. let's bring in the rest of our panel. robert trainer, former

bush/cheney senior advisor. joan palmieri, former clinton campaign. and donny deutsche is back. donny? >> my leg is shaking. >> i know, go. let it all out. >> here's what's going on here. i want to talk about the memo. we have a dozen instances of clearly the russians colluding in this election with top trump official. two have already been convicted. we have a guy, a president who clearly is owned by putin. we have an investigation going. that's good news. we basically now have a press release that's been put out, that's been twisted and mangled that now we'll give this president permission to fire rosenstein who will now take over this investigation. our democracy is under siege. people need to start taking to the streets. this is a dictator. this is not something to analyze any more. this is not oh, well, good day for trump. this is frightening stuff. if you are an american, if you're somebody who is 80 years old and sitting at home and you've watched the greatness of

this country, you should be terrified and if you're a 12-year-old and the future is in front of you, this is terrifying. this is not time to analyze and pundit. people, we need a revolution at this point. and i'm not doing tv here and going what is he doing? this is what's going on. >> you know what's interesting? i talked to a person, former top intelligence official for this country under democratic and republican presidents, who is just as mad as you are. i mean, you -- >> i'm frightened. >> and he said, you know, where is the dni? where did the cia come down on this? where did the dni come down on this? where did any of you stand on the release of classified information to be used to smear the fbi? >> where is the republican leadership? you know, john mccain -- >> they're gone. they are so far gone. paul ryan left this investigation in the hands of devin nunes. and out of the closet trump stooge. >> this is not an issue of left versus right, this is not an issue of republican versus

democrat, this is right versus wrong. someone should speak up and say stop it. this is enough. >> but chris wray went to paul ryan's office. the washington post said that chris wray and rod rosenstein trekked to the capital. they sat with paul ryan and they begged him. they begged him not to put classified information involving the surveillance courts into the hands of devin nunes. what did he say? no. then they trekked over to the house committee and said, just let us brief the members of the house intel committee before they take a vote that would put sensitive classified information in the hands of the public and our enemies, more importantly. what did they say? no, you can't make our voters smarter, we're going to vote dumb. that's a fantasy. >> and it's sad. it's come to this. i mean, let's have that conversation. it's come to this, right? >> a year ago, last year he fired comey on his own without any sort of support from the hill. and the hill let it go. and now they are actively working to coordinate this

undermining of the democracy from the hill with the speaker of the house as well as chair nunes. it is no longer a case of when is the republican leadership going to stand up. they are now in cahoots with them. this is -- donny is right, extraordinarily dangerous what they are on, what they are on pace to do. >> this investigation is trying to find out one simple thing. did our number one geopolitical enemy have anything to do with our electoral process. i think that's an investigation that should happen. right now the president, based on nothing, based on something he could have written himself is going to go out and go, i don't think we should have that investigation. we are under siege. >> we don't know that he didn't. steve? >> stepping back from all of this, what's happening is that the russian federation is engaged in global information war triying to subvert faith in democracies all across the democratic west. >> right. >> and they're specifically targeting the world's most important democracy, the united states. vladimir putin understood something about us, how easily

we could be turned at each other's throats. understood the fragility of our system, how corrupted some of these washington institutions are. and so what we see playing out is a battle field of misinformation on the social media sites. on fox news. across all of -- >> you remind me, the release of the memo was -- i was sent a report that i think two-thirds of the social media trafficking was done by russian bots, the #release the memo was furthered, was pushed by russian -- >> so the job of the congress is to understand that an attack by the russians on the clinton campaign is, in fact, an attack on the united states of america and our elections process. the job of the congress to be looking out, what's going to happen in 2018? what's going to happen in 2020? how do we maintain the integrity of the u.s. elections process when it's under this type of

assault? how do we strengthen our institutions, not weaken them -- >> but we don't, right? >> right. and the total corruption, the corruption by devin nunes of the bipartisan process around the intelligence committee's function is startling. and it's unprecedented. >> what about paul ryan? >> paul ryan as we've seen all year clearly doesn't understand institutionally as speaker of the house that he's charged, in part, with protecting the prerogatives of his co-equal branch of government. >> i don't believe that. he's too smart. >> and he doesn't clearly understand it or -- >> or what? >> or he's a willful accomplice to the degradation of all of these institutions. >> or scared to death of the trump base and that he and his colleagues may be primaried and lose the house in november. >> here's the deal with trump. you can be nice to him or mean to him and you may get primaried anyway. that's a dumb reason to assist in the destruction of the once bipartisan function of the house

intelligence committee. >> i don't disagree. i want to know what the people of this country are going to do if rod rosenstein is fired. we can't sit down. trump is winning. he's winning, kids. this crazy wacky guy is winning. and a year into this he has already, not chipped, has cutaway at the things that protect us. half of this country thinks the media totally lies. at this .44% of this country doesn't trust the fbi. >> intelligence. keep going. let's do the whole list. a year ago during the campaign it was the independence of the judiciary because of attacks on judge curiel. more than a year ago it was attacks on the intelligence committee ironically after jim comey told him about the existence of the dossier. more recent lip it's been the fbi and an ongoing obsessive manner the media. >> a year from now this doesn't change, maybe this table is in trouble we keep talking like this. i'm not being dramatic. this is what's happening, kids. i mean, and this guy is winning. this wacky orange poofy haired

guy is winning this game and we cannot depend on the congress any more. and if rosenstein is fired, there needs to be people in the streets because that is -- it's getting in scary territory, kids. >> last word. >> i think you will see that. what's going to have to happen is democrats are going to have to take over the house because the republicans are not going to do it. i thought once the tax cut bill was done maybe paul ryan would be willing to throw trump under the bus. but they just continued to collude with him. >> they passed on this. everybody's side is chosen. it's on the super bowl on sunday. you have patriots and eagles on the field. in this election in november, you have team trump and you have everybody else. >> and one trump -- to break, an ally said to me that he's out of control. the guardrails have all failed. and only losing control of congress will bring him back in control. it will be the campaign equivalent of losing wisconsin. that will be the next time anyone can talk any sense into

him. scary thought. when we come back, donald trump's love/hate relationship with the fbi.

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with humira, remission is possible. we're back with some breaking news. "the new york times" is the first to report some of the contents of what would have been in the minority memo, the minority members of the house intel committee had also created a memo trying to explain some of this. there's the headline. house republicans released their secret memo accusing russia investigators of bias. that was the only one voted to be released. the democrats led by adam schiff had also created a memo trying to put the actual intelligence into a little more context. let me read you a little bit from that piece. mccabe, who i believe was the acting fbi director at the time, or the deputy fbi director, told the committee that the decision to seek a fisa warrant was also prompted by russian attempts to target mr. papadopoulos and a trip mr. page took to moscow in july 2016 and the russian

hacking of democratic e-mails that appeared to be aimed at harming the presidential campaign of hillary clinton. two people familiar from the democratic memo said. so, the democrats were trying to paint a much fuller picture, which if you talk to anyone who has ever submitted a fisa application, will tell you that to get one, to prevail in a fisa court which is ruled by federal judges who rotate in and out, democratic and republican appointees, this makes a lot more sense. >> yeah, this makes -- let's get to a fuller sentence. >> gives a full context. >> and there are two fundamental points that were made. one is the fbi investigation of russia's involvement in the campaign started in july, well ahead of this fisa warrant. so, not that any of this is legitimate, but even to argue about the fisa warrant involving carter page being relevant to the overall investigation, is false. and then the second piece is that they had a russian agent as part of the campaign, and somebody, you know, paul manafort has a lot of ties to

russia, somebody brought him into the campaign. and i don't think that's a question of bad vetting. i think that was a deliberate move. and i think this is why you always saw the trump apparatus throwing paul manafort under the bus right way. the involvement of russia is very deep personal to a person. >> a lot of people have said, steve said that this is working. here's why i don't think the memo works. donald trump were happy with 33% of the country loving him, he'd be happy. he won, he's president. 33% of the country literally would stay with him if he, as he once said, shot someone on 5th avenue. he's not happy with that 33% and i think the other 67% of the country is going to see that since 2013, carter page who was donald trump's national security -- one of his advisors, was thought to be an agent of the russians. he was hired two years after he was first thought to be an agent

of the russians. we know we learned after the election the obama administration had opened up a counter intelligence investigation into russian meddling in the election months before these reauthorized fisard fisa applications. before the one that came into question in the nunes memo. could what they release backfire if more context comes out. it is almost 5:00 and we have a fuller picture of why they were listened to page. >> yes. so if more stuff comes out, this could backfire. the question i have is who in the white house is advising the president, politically but from a legal tastandpoint. who has his ear and saying this is not the right thing to do and here are the reasons. why there is no one in the white house that has the gravitas or the experience to push back with this president in a rational way. >> but it doesn't mean anything. they don't have any weight -- right now that 33% is what protects him because it keeps the republicans in congress afraid to go after him because

they think they will get primary. if he could keep those people in check, he can go forward and try and derail this investigation. and that is what it is about. he's not even worried about -- he's doing what can he can to safeguard and as long as the 33% are behind him, the weak republicans will not go against him and he will do what he needs to do. >> let me bring into the conversation eric swallow, a member of the house intel committee. we're just getting information from a new report in "the new york times" about what the democrats in your committee wants to put out which is more context than in the republican side. take us inside the decision not to release the fuller picture? what was the motive for not doing so? >> well the motive was clearly to protect the president on the republican's side. our memo was a ten-page memo detailed that rebutted putting the context and provided the true timeline and shed new and

unseen evidence in this investigation that bolsters the fbi's credible and i think elevated the seriousness of the russia investigation. paul ryan is now claiming that he will allow our memo to come ford and -- forward and we've asked the republicans for a vote on this. >> so if paul ryan is going to allow your mem o to come out on monday. is there anything you could share. "the new york times" reports that your memo includes this fact that mccabe told the committee that the decision to seek a fisa warrant was also prompted by russian attempts to target papadapoulos, a trip page took to moscow and the russian hacking of democratic e-mails. so more went into the fisa application than the dossier, which is the trump favorite shiny object to distract from everything, even though the dossier has not to this point been disproved or discredited. >> the characterization of mccabe' testimony is -- it is a

miss characterization and what went into the fiez you a -- fisa application. and carter page was a suggested foreign agent for three years leading us to this dossier. the russians were interfering in our election and papadapoulos has pled guilty and the same team as carter page at the time he was traveling to moscow. there is a multiple factors out there without going into what was in the fisa application that a reasonable person would conclude to know what kartser page was up to. >> the one name in the nunes memo that is possible donald trump could seize on is rod rosenstein's name. he signed off on or approved one of the fisa reauthorizations. which i want to ask you two part question. one, does that mean -- does that prove there was a fruitful or troubling stream of information to continue to reauthorize

surveillance of page, and to, what would the fallout be if he used the presence ever his name in the memo which the president said was disgraceful and people should be ashamed, what if he does fire rosen stein. >> that is the seriousness into this investigation. and also the fact that this never leaked, if they were so out to get donald trump, why didn't this leak at a pivotal time during the campaign. as to rosenstein's role, he is mueller's boss approves the extendityure and then you could control what mueller does or does not do. so we must do all we can next week knowing what the intent is from the president and the republicans to try and protect mueller and protect rosenstein so this investigation could reach a conclusion. >> i don't know if you could see this, but i'll put up on our screen a list of the people who have signed off on the fisa

applications or reauthorizations for carter page. james comb ji, sally yates, fired, andy mccabe, asked to step down and rod rosenstein is the last man standing. could you tell me how concerned you are about the enemy list that is being put together and not just added by the president but acted upon. he has fired everybody who was investigating a man who on his campaign was a known -- known to counter intelligence officials, a known russian agent. >> it is hair raising to think about where those people are. and we must protect them. and also the d.o.j. and the fbi have to do something they are not comfortable doing. and that is speaking up. they like to keep their heads down an do their work and stay out of politics. and now is not a time to do that. i was so glad to see that christopher wray spoke up to talk about how destructive this would be and others would have to stand up and do the same and we need bipartisan leadership in

congress otherwise we're risking the republic for these individuals to protect the president. >> one last question. what will democrats do -- do you have a plan for the moment you see it flash across your phone that donald trump has fired rod rosenstein. what will you do? >> i believe that is obstruction of justice and that is grounds for being referred to the house judiciary committee for impeachment proceedings. >> have you had any conversations, you don't have to name names, but do you have any sort of glimmer of hope that a single republican either in the house or the senate feels the same way you do? >> yes. and i've talked to individuals -- republicans in both chambers who have expressed concern if that happened, they would -- they would feel compelled to move. >> thank you so much for spending some time with us. we're always grateful to have you and especially today. >> of course, my pleasure. and does that make you feel better. you said they need to plan. congressman has a plan. >> going forward the democrats have to stop talking about fisa memos an be proactive to

understanding what the intent is to get rid of rosenstein and control the mueller investigation and what are they going to do. line up whatever they need to do. that is the game. it is no longer -- >> the problem is democrats don't have a lot of power in the house. the speaker and the chairman of the judiciary committee has the power in this context and the question is what does speaker ryan do. they are the ones that control the paper as mitch mcconnell would say to get things to the floor. so the real question is -- >> what does he do based on everything in the last six weeks. >> at at end of the day i think paul ryan will step up to the plate. >> "the new york times" an washington post have editorials about the disgrace that is paul ryan putting this power in devin nunes. >> i think speaker ryan has to look in the mirror and i think he will put the country first. >> i think where this is going, there is a fundamental question on the ballot is that is do we

want to be a banana republic when you abandon fidelity to the rule of law. or do we want to be a constitutional republic like we've been for the last 240 years. and if the answer to the question is the latter, we don't want to be a banana republic, then this is going to have to be sorted out in the mid-term elections where i suspect there will be a massive repudiation by the american people delivered on this. >> and i'm with you on today. let me read you what christopher wray sent out to his staff today. the american people read the papers and they hear a lot of talk on cable tv and social media that keeping communities safe and our nations secure dealing with sensitive matters in making decisions will always matter more. talk is cheap. the work you do is what will endure. we speak through our work. one case at a time. one intelligence product at a time. one decision. we do that work and we stay laser focused on doing great work even when it is not easy because it stands for this

institution means to people and nothing will change that. we'll keep doing that work because we know who and what we are. and because we know people come first. so i ask you to doing your great work and keep being the great people you are and i'm determined to defend your integrity and professionalism every day. keep calm and tackle hard and keep your faith in the institution. >> so they are worried people will not abide by the fbi when it comes to criminal matters. >> let me paint a bleaker picture. from a former national security official, the next waco that they are killed in the line of duty, that is on trump. >> that what they are saying in the first few sentences. is to send a signal to the rest of the country, you could still trust the fbi to fight crime. >> last words to you, donnie. >> the fbi dedicate their lives to protect us and give their lives. period. the other guys are -- a real real estate star. >> but you said the reality real

estate star won this round. >> it needs to scare people. >> but the war is not over yet. we have to keep faith. >> not get angry. >> that is the last word. i'm nicolle wallace, "mtp daily" starts right now. >> i didn't find my shadow. did you find yours. >> what does that mean? cold or not? winter is over or still going. >> i think it means we're -- we're six month mores of what we're doing right now. >> oh, god, that is like three more seasons. have a good day. >> if it is friday, the memo saw its shadow. six more months of the mueller probe. tonight the republican memo is out. >> i think it is a disgrace. what is going on in this country, i this it is a disgrace. >> will the president use it as a excuse to fire rod rosenstein. >> do you have confidence in rod rosenstein. >> you figure that one out. >> and shadow games. why i'm obsessed with groundhog