well, that's it for me. i'm david gura. the news continues now with richard lui. how are you, my friend? >> very well. get out there, my friend. stay warm. thank you, david. richard lui live here at msnbc headquarters. it's 4:00 in the east, 1:00 ntd west. we're going to start this hour with some fallout from the controversial memo we've been talking about so much exposing fbi surveillance practices in the russia investigation. nbc news now just this hour exclusively obtaining a six-page rebuttal to house intelligence committee chairman devin nunes' controversial memo on the russia investigation. now, again, just this hour this is coming in from new york congressman jerry nadler, this exclusive i'm talking about, top democrat on the house judiciary committee, it is the democrats most detailed public response to nunes' memo challenging its very core, its very core conclusion.

let's get right to the man who broke the story for us nbc news national political reporter, mike, we're just getting this in. now with a report on it just the top of this hour right now at 4:00 eastern and there are four main points. start with what stands out the most for us. >> well, richard, since the release yesterday of this memo from the republicans on the house intelligence committee, we've seen some very strong public responses from democrats. and even some republicans about both the process and some of the initial claims that were made in this memo. but the democrats are being limited somewhat because of the sensitive nature of this information and responding as they really would like to. but as you say we now obtain this exclusively this memo from jerry nadler, he's the top democrat on the house judiciary committee. and he is offering the most comprehensive response so far to what nunes claimed. and he makes four key points. and the most important being about what the republican memo states which is that the fisa warrant that was obtained by the

justice department by the fbi to spy on carter page to surveil on carter page was improperly obtained. what nadler is saying is he fails to demonstrate nunes in this memo that they lacked evidence beyond the dossier in order to obtain this memo. that the case law supports the idea that there was no improper conduct on the part of the justice department in not disclosing when they sought this warrant that there potentially were political sources that where there was funding behind the work of the dossier. this is of course involving chris fer steele, the british spy who was contracted by fusion gps in order to obtain some information on donald trump. the other points are that steele, this british spy, he had such a reputation and his past work involving russia and organized crime was of such a high standard that even with the potential that he was being funded by -- his work was being funded by democrats involving the clinton campaign would not have been enough to invalidate his claims. and in fact we know from the testimony from glenn simpson,

the co-founder of fusion gps that steele himself didn't even know the sources of funding for his work. the other points nadler makes, this is really a legal analysis and also a political analysis. he says republicans are now part and parcel of an effort to obstruct this investigation into the president that up until now what we've seen from congressional republicans simply refusal to be as aggressive in their investigation as they would like to be, but now we see an active effort to obstruct that investigation to sort of muddy the waters here. >> and, again, this is not again the democrats response there in the house nor is it a summary necessarily of many representatives that are democratic in response again to the memo that came out on friday. this is just jerry nadler's representative from new york's response so far. why is he doing this now? is it an intimation of what might be coming out in the official democratic house intel memo that is now being vetted?

>> well, there are two reasons that this is significant, richard. one is that jerry nadler is one of a few very small number of lawmakers in the house both republicans and democrats who've actually seen the fisa application that's in question here. we know that only trey gowdy and adam schiff on the intelligence committee and nadler himself and bob goodlatte, the chairman, have seen the underlying documents the basis for the memo. adam schiff, top democrat on the intelligence committee, we know he's drafted a much more substantive response to the nunes memo, but because the information is classified they have not been able to make that public yet. in fact, republicans have so far blocked efforts, the democrats efforts, to make sure that their memo would be released at the same time as the nunes memo. now we have heard from republicans that they are willing to have schiff's memo go public. >> right. >> but of course this all relies on whether or not president trump will declassify the democratic memo just as we saw

him declassify the republican memo. >> now, this response from jeremy nadler, again we're just getting in, well, report in the last five minutes six pages long. you did mention that jerry nadler, one of those very few representatives that was able to put his or her eyes on the very fisa warrant that is in question today. did you glean anything from this memo or in any discussions you may or may not have had with jerry nadler in terms of the fisa warrant itself that he was able to mention while keeping the confidentiality in place while keeping in the fisa process? >> this memo from jerry nadler also being circulated among house democrats at this hour so they're seeing it just auz os o viewers are hearing about it as well. just in the last 24 hours between the authors of the memo, the republican staff and the democrats is whether or not the

justice department did in fact exclude from their application in october of 2016 for this fisa warrant the fact that the sources of information that the dossier that was a part of one of many pieces of evidence that they put before a fisa court in order to obtain this warrant, was it funded by political campaigns? democrats adam schiff telling reporters yesterday in fact that there were references to candidate one, candidate two, but that typically you wouldn't see specific names of campaigns, of law firms or any other people as part of what is known as min mization procedures. and what nadler's memo says there's an established case law that the justice department was doing nothing illegal, nothing improper even if they didn't include at all any references to political funding. that in fact only issues would be if they knowingly included false information into this warrant or if they excluded information that would have been determinative in terms of

whether or not the fisa judge would have issued this warrant. what nadler's memo makes clear, and again he's one of the few people who have seen the warrant, is that this warrant would likely have been issued even if the dossier was not a part of it. and, again, adam schiff told us yesterday only small pieces of the dossier were actually included in the fisa warrant. >> right. >> and those pieces that were included were subject of corroboration by other evidence included. >> you don't mind looking through your reporting as well as jerry nadler's very memo here, his rebuttal i should say came out in the last seven minutes was that he didn't mention potentially the obvious and that is number five in the nunes memo which brings up papadopoulos as reason for the investigation, it is not one of his four main points he brings up and yet he is still looking ahead at the arguments that may be made because of the nunes memo. and that of course rod rosenstein and the push although not articulated specifically to get him removed.

>> that's right. that's another point that nadler's memo hits on very clearly which is this idea that we've heard from republicans that this nunes memo would support what is really growing drum beat to maybe remove the deputy attorney general. what nadler points out there's nothing in this memo from nunes that really supports that. that really rosenstein's vomit was minimal. he wasn't confirmed into his position until the spring of 2017 and at that point there had already been the initial warrant approved for carter page and potentially another renewal, this has to be renewed every 90 days in the fisa court. and additionally the fact the warrant was renewed on carter page shows they were able to obtain actionable information based on the surveillance they have done so far. so there is serious concern on the part of democrats across the board that we are seeing and we saw it in the president's own comments yesterday when he talked about declassifying the memo that this is part of a campaign to remove him. what's important about

rosenstein's position is that he's the one that oversees the mueller probe. he can help define its scope, the resources that are available to it and its investigation. nadler it's the third point he makes in this memo is a very important one to democrats which is that there's nothing here that should support the idea that he needs to be removed for anything that he did improperly. >> okay. nbc's mike memoli on this exclusive reaction six pages long again from jerry nadler from the judiciary committee there in the house. the top democrat. and he is coming out strong with four points, potentially echoing what we may hear from the official democratic house intel committee memo or not. we don't know. but at least this is the most extensive response so far and nbc news exclusive just into us within the last nine minutes. thanks so much mike memoli. with that let's bring in nbc news justice correspondent pete williams and nbc white house correspondent jeff bennett in west palm beach.

i want to start with pete. pete, you heard some of the reporting here coming from mike memoli. you've been reporting extensively on the very memo that came out on friday, but now we have this rebuttal from jerry nadler, what's your thought? >> well, it's basically a legal argument. what he says is that the fisa court is like any other court. and this is an issue that comes up before judges all the time. when the government wants something, an arrest warrant or a search warrant, it goes to a judge and says, look, this is the evidence we have, this is what we think establishes probable cause of a crime here, so give us an arrest warrant, search warrant and let us get a wiretap and it's the latter in the case of the fisa court. what the courts have said is that it doesn't make these applications improper or abusive if you rely on an informant who is biased. in fact, informants are often biased. when you're doing a case against

some mafia guy and your informant is jimmy the weasel, maybe he's got a grudge against the cop, judges deal with that all the time. the test is always is there some reason to believe is the informant credible. and that's what jerry nadler says in this memo here. he says, a -- in his letter rather to his colleagues, he says, a, the fisa warrant to get the wiretap order against carter page doesn't rely heavily on the steele dossier. but secondly, steele's a credible guy. so those are basically what he's saying. and he's saying the case law has always supported using informants even if they have a bias. >> over to you, jeff, at the white house. the president tweeting this morning about the republican memo that came out on friday. and then we have jerry nadler's response today. hear jeff probably not enough time for response from the hill, only 11 minutes in since we had

the response, but what did president say earlier today about friday? >> well, earlier today, richard, the president proclaimed his innocence pointing to this partisan nunes memo that he declassified as proof. so here's the tweet, the president says this. this memo totally vindicates trump in probe but the russian witch hunt goes on and on. there was no collusion and there was no obstruction, the word now used because after one year of looking endlessly and finding nothing collusion is dead. this is an meamerican disgrace. as mike and pete have both pointed out there's nothing in the memo that totally does vindicate the president. it in fact perhaps inadvertently confirms the fact that the counterintelligence investigation began in july 2016 after then-trump campaign aide george papadopoulos was bragging one night after too many drinks about how he had access to dirt on hillary clinton by a russian agent. papadopoulos as you know since

has pleaded guilty about lying to officials about his contacts with agents. another thing to point out if you remember in the leadup to the release, you had top republicans on the hill including paul ryan saying the document was not designed to impugn the credibility of roblt mueller or deputy attorney general rod rosenstein but based on the president's tweet, based on comments from white house officials, those statements are now undermining paul ryan's point here as the president tries to apparently -- apparently tries to use this document to prove his point that the special counsel russia investigation is a hoax, richard. >> and building on that, back to you, pete, on this. in a note that you were making, is that for these renewals the requirements for the renewals, we understand there are three according to this memo. and if correct what would that process be. when you dig into that, what does that tell us? >> well, what nadler is making another point here again about

the law. the law when you go to the fisa court to get one of these applications to monitor somebody's communications, they expire after 90 days. when you go back to get a renewal, you have to show that the first time you did this you got something. that there's a need to continue. >> uh-huh. >> in other words you can't say to the judge, look, we're fishing in this lake, we haven't caught anything yet but don't make us go away, maybe we'll get something. doesn't work that way with the fisa court. you have to show that you've gotten something from the first couple of attempts to do this. now, rod rosenstein apparently signed the last one of these, the fourth one. there were three before him. and what nadler is saying here in essence is don't blame rod rosenstein for approving these things because his three predecessors all thought that there was value out of what they were getting and he was just continuing on what had already started.

so that's one of the legal points he makes in this letter. >> uh-huh. and, jeff, looking forward here, nunes saying yesterday on fox news with sean hannity this is just the beginning, that we could be seeing, what, 70%, 80% more. there's just a fraction thereof and president being involved in this initial one having to declassify certain parts of what was released here, any readout there from the white house in terms of what may be next and whether the white house will be part of these next phases? >> well, not on that specific point, but the white house has expressed an openness to declassifying the democratic rebuttal document from the house intelligence committee. that process will take some time. and as we've seen, richard, republicans have already had a head start in crafting the public narrative around all of this. but we should make clear this document, the nunes memo, is a political document, not a legal one. >> all right. so we start with three and a half pages yesterday on a friday, we got another six pages today from jerry nadler. probably not the end of memos. nbc's jeff bennett, pete

williams, thank you to have two great brains for us here on the set. thank you so much. still ahead, fact checking the nunes memo, still more. does it really clear things up or was it just smoke in mirrors? plus, its impact on the white house's relationship with the justice department and intelligence community. greatest reason to watch the commercials this sunday? you might be in one. on sunday night, kraft's commercial is reserved for the people we think are truly great. families. you know, like actual, non-celebrity, non-famous, non-reality show families. so, get ready to share a photo or video of how you family on game day, and we might show your photo to 111 million people. get your camera, get your people and get ready. ♪ do you want clean, stain free dentures? try polident. the four in one cleaning system kills 99.99% of odor causing bacteria, cleans where brushing may miss. helps remove stains and prevent stain build up. use polident daily.

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more now on our nbc news exclusive, the ranking democrat on the house judiciary committee jerry nadler just releasing a six-page rebuttal right here.

you can find it on our website if you haven't seen it yet. it's rebuttal to the nunes memo. this rebuttal is six pages long. it challenges the core conclusions of the nunes memo. you can see the summary here on screen right now. but to understand what we want to do here to take you through the timeline of the nunes memo and then fact check it starting with this. >> mr. comey had a chance in january, february, march, april, i believe all the way until june to come clean on who paid for the dossier. he was asked about it in january and he said very clearly that he knew republicans had started the dossier, which was a lie. and then when asked and probed further, well, who finished the dossier, he didn't know. >> in reality the dossier was initially funded by republicans. the conservative news outlet, the washington free beacon, led by republican billionaire paul singer, big donor, admitted to

funding the dossier put together by research firm fusion gps. now, it was fusion gps who then hired christopher steele, the former british spy. hillary clinton and democrats then later continued the funding of that project. nunes also claims permission to spy on former trump campaign aide carter page was granted after presentation of the steele dossier as factual without disclosing the political funding to the fisa court. but democrat intel committee member eric swalwell says that's not true. >> that fact was disclosed, it was disclosed to the fisa court that part of the evidence was from a politically motivated source. >> and now then today just within the last couple of hours nbc's ken delanian citing a democratic congressional source claims fbi deputy director

andrew mccabe would not say that the steele dossier was the major pretext to obtaining the fisa warrant on page, the one we've been talking about. "the wall street journal" reporting that page was on the radar of u.s. counterintelligence as early as 2013. of course that's long before the dossier even existed. still, the memo drafted by republicans pushes congressman nunes' narrative. nunes did not read the fisa documents as has been mentioned before. that is making up the basis of the memo. only republican congressman trey gowdy and democrat adam schiff has read that. but nunes claims he still co-authored the memo with his staffers and trey gowdy. and in a letter released with the nunes memo white house council don mcgahn writes, to be clear, the memorandum reflects the judgments of its congressional authors. and critically nunes also failed to address a critical piece of the memo saying, quote, the

papadopoulos information triggered the opening of an fbi counterintelligence investigation in late july 2016 by fbi agent peter strzok. let's bring in our panel, benjamin, senior fellow of the brookings institute and frank, former director of counterintelligence at the fbi. okay. let's start with you on this, frank. you've heard jerry nadler's response to this. fairly extensive. what stood out? you heard some of the reporting from mike memoli on what jerry nadler, most extensive as we've been saying so far it's an nbc exclusive and that's why we want to start the show with it. your response so far, frank. >> our response is we finally heard from somebody who actually read the fisa application. let's remember that congressman nunes has not read the underlying affidavit. and why is that significant? because if you've got someone

who's actually read the whole thing, he understands the context of this, he understands that an affidavit in application for fisa warrant is a building block, each page serves as a building block and tells a story. and he also knows this, he knows because i've got it in front of me, that the memo actually has headers and footers that were originally -- because you can see through the black magic marker, were originally top secret. so congressman nadler knows what top secret means. it means that the affidavit contains signals intelligence or extremely sensitive technical or possibly human sources from another service or from another agency in the u.s. government. it's the most sensitive rating you can give a document. and that means there's a whole lot more in there for probable cause than the dossier than carter page or than a newspaper article which is what the republican memo is trying to get

us to believe. so we finally have a more reasoned approach and response. and i think it will be the framework for the democratic response. >> which we are waiting to hear. ben, what do you make of this new reporting that we have here at nbc news coming from jerry nadler and his six-page response to the three and a half pages from friday? >> well, you know, i want to go back to the original memo and say you actually kind of rebuts itself in important respects, some of which you've had up on the screen, because the careful reader of the nunes memo, even without this subsequent rebuttal memo will notice that the investigation did not in fact begin with the steele dossier. it began of course with the george papadopoulos information. the careful reader will also notice that the carter page wiretap or fisa order has been

reauthorized multiple times including by officials of the incumbent administration which does tend to suggest that there's as frank just said a little bit more to it than at least probably a great deal more to it than, you know, laundered opposition research from a single source. and so, you know, what nadler has produced here is kind of a legal memo. but i think the much more important thing is the underlying underlying underlying inadequacy, some of it apparent on the face itself. >> frank, i want to drill down on the top secret designation which you've been very clear to mention since that memo came out yesterday and you've done again today. you are saying it is the highest

classification. the fas as they late out show it as when you get the top secret designation, it is information that could cause exceptionally grave damage, this is opposed to serious damage under secret and the lower classification which is confidential expected to cause damage. but this is the highest of all the classifications. and what might this mean then based on this group of republicans in the house intel committee decide to focus on this particular fisa warrant. did they pick the wrong one? >> well, i think what we're seeing here is tremendous fear because they're very concerned about this carter page wiretap. and so when i saw this top secret -- so your viewers should understand, first of all, there's nothing in this three and a quarter page memo from congressman nunes that is actually top secret in itself, right? because i'm sure many people have read it and went i don't see what's top secret here.

>> right. >> so what we derive from that is that it's based upon or derived from top secret information that was contained in the affidavit, the application for that wiretap. and what does that mean in the government? i'm here to tell you that the average fisa application from the fbi is actually marked secret, not top secret. when you go to top secret, you're dealing with extremely sensitive signals intelligence likely from another agency in the u.s. government and what does that mean? it means it's intercepts. intercepts of communications. intercepts of foreign communications. likely intercepts of russian government officials being used to bolster the probable cause. why are people afraid of that in washington? because maybe, just maybe part of the probable cause picture is an intercept involving russian officials talking to campaign people. i think that's the source of the fear. >> may i add something to that? >> please do, ben. >> so i agree that, you know, it

is a highly significant fact that the president declassified and released and that the chairman of the house intelligence committee recklessly decided to reveal information that is, you know, from a top secret document. but there is another reason why this document is so grotesquely irresponsible and that's a civil liberties reason. you know, one of the things that devin nunes did in releasing this document is that he publicly named a fisa target. and one of the reasons that we don't do that is because we protect the civil liberties of people even when they're under surveillance. and one of the ways we do that is by not naming them publicly. and, you know, it's a kind of a weird thing to complain about an

abuse of fisa, which is what this document does, by abusing fisa, which is what this document does. and the whole purpose of the fisa was to prevent the use of plit -- espionage for political purposes or partisan purposes. and that is exactly what this memo did. so in addition to the problem of releasing classified information, we should understand this as a real civil liberties problem. >> quickly to you, frank, i want to build on what ben was saying, but quickly, frank, the issue of the president having to declassify some information here. this is now his decision to do that in an obstruction case this could, again, add to the argument that he's trying again to the obstruction case. >> i think it's particularly significant if we can show, someone can show, if mueller can show that there's actual conspiracy between the white house and nunes in the crafting and release of this memo, then you do have another case for obstruction.

>> frank, thank you so much, benjamin, thank you both so much for your help today. they'll be back with us later as well. republicans are saying the nunes memo reveals bias in the russia investigation. democrats call it a sham. more political fallout on how the memo could affect investigations by the senate and house intelligence committees. you may be at increased risk for pneumococcal pneumonia, that can take you out of the game for weeks, even if you're healthy. pneumococcal pneumonia is a potentially serious bacterial lung disease that in severe cases can lead to hospitalization. it may hit quickly, without warning, causing you to miss out on the things you enjoy most. prevnar 13® is not a treatment for pneumococcal pneumonia... it's a vaccine you can get to help protect against it.

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nbc news has exclusively obtained a rebuttal from congressman jerry nadler, six pages long. he's the top democrat on the house judiciary committee. he accuses republicans of trying to obstruct the russia probe by releasing that controversial nunes memo from congressman devin nunes on friday. on the rachel maddow show last night congressman adam schiff, ranking democrat on the house intel committee says this all started after former fbi director james comey hearing before his committee. take a listen. >> it was the very next day after that hearing that devin nunes went on the midnight run to his undisclosed location to get these incriminating documents that didn't stand for anything like he represented them. and the day after that he would present them back to the white house. so that whole gambut began and

an effort to distract from the russia probe and try to put government on trial. >> joining us msnbc contributor for daily beast, jordan fabian and eugene scott, political reporter for "the washington post." betsy, let's start with that exclusive rebuttal coming from jerry nadler, the important point here is he has seen the fisa warrant. nunes has not. >> right. and it's one of the biggest surprises from yesterday of course was nunes revealing that he hadn't actually looked at any of the understood lying intelligence, the fact that he was so open and candid about that was really interesting. and points to perhaps a larger role for trey gowdy in putting together this memo then we'd initially expected. that said, i think when we look at this rebuttal that nadler has put forth, it's important to put it in a bit of context. nadler only recently rose as the top democrat on the house judiciary committee. he took that post after john

conyers left once he was facing serious accusations of misconduct involving several women. this was probably the first major public headline grabbing step that nadler has taken since he rose to that position. it's interesting that he's taking this step as a way of directly going after another committee, another sort of partisan divide but standing up for the fbi which is in his jurisdiction as head of the judiciary chair. sort of him staking out his turf if he's able to take over the judiciary committee if democrats flip the house that he might take a fairly aggressive approach to some of these oversight and partisan issues. >> also coming out today coming from ken delanian and his reporting that democratic congressional source telling him fbi deputy director andrew mccabe did not say that the dossier was the pretext alone for the fisa warrant.

again, that was the claim coming out of friday's memo. >> right. and that goes to show how the complaints are that the underlying intelligence that backed up this memo isn't really available to the public. that testimony that andrew mccabe gave to the intelligence committee is private. and so we don't know, we're basically being forced to take devin nunes's work for it. this is what andrew mccabe said in this politically polarized environment over half the people aren't going to believe that and paints the broader picture that this memo is part of the battle lines around the russia investigation. we're going to see adam schiff perhaps put out his memo. and devin nunes said last night on fox news that he's going to be putting out additional memos detailing misconduct at the state department and other places. so it seems like we could soon be swimming in memos and trying to figure out how to break this partisan divide surrounding the russia investigation. >> yeah, nine and a half pages so far, but who's counting? eugene, when you look at what

jerry nadler is saying, he brings up rod rosenstein, is he still -- are democrats still quite concerned about this despite the friday memo not really having a lot of teeth that one might use against rosenstein? >> very much so because if you recall democrats were concerned that the president could fire rosenstein even before this memo became public. whether or not this memo reveals that rosenstein and his team did anything improper seems to be irrelevant in terms of how trump and perhaps more importantly many of the people supporting him be it in the media or his base view rosenstein and this investigation as a whole. and so one thing i think is also perhaps worth noting in addition to the possibility that trump could decide to let rosenstein go, trump has a history and a record of not always firing people but creating such relations that make things so uncomfortable for them that they choose to resign on their own.

>> betsy, the white house, the trump administration trying to distance themselves from carter page, the individual in question here. that's part of this memo. but the president having to declassify this information personally, does that still bring it all back together? >> i think the president's move here declassifying it was clearly one that he believes will be politically useful. he tweeted earlier today that the memo vindicates him, that it shows that the russia investigation is a witch hunt and that it's a disgrace to america as a country that whatever happened that underlies this memo actually happened. of course we've seen that assertion preemptively rebutted by the justice department, by the political figures that he put in place there, his own appointees, chris wray and rod rosenstein moved quickly before the memo came out to push back against that spin. the fact that the president is still saying that this memo proves there was wrongdoing on the part of the fbi is pretty astonishing.

it's very much a fight within the trump administration just highlights the tension between the white house and the justice department. >> jordan, 20 seconds. and there is more. the state department next? >> that's right. devin nunes went out and said there will be additional memos. we're not exactly sure what he means, but this is in an effort on behalf of president trump and his republican allies to muddy the water in this investigation. and it doesn't seem like this memo is the last of it. >> and the question might be, eugene, 20 seconds to you, is how involved the white house will be as overtly as they were in this release. >> well, they probably will continue to be involved because their reputation is on the line. and this is an investigation directly involving many of the people who were affiliated on the trump campaign or involved, shall i say, on the trump campaign wo are presently in the white house. >> a great lightning round panel here. betsy, jordan, eugene, thank you all three and have a great saturday. >> you too. >> all right. we'll be right back. but what a powerful life lesson.

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this new day. looks nothing like yesterday. roads nowhere to be found. and it's exactly what you're looking for.

and very good afternoon to you. i'm richard lui at msnbc headquarters in new york city. thanks for staying with us. here's what we're watching this hour for you. north korea outright defying u.n. sanctions and raking in nearly $200 million last year on the black market. according to a report the money coming from coal shipments to several countries including russia, china and south korea. the report also accused pyongyang of supplying weapons to syria and myanmar. well, this year's flu, it continues to get worse. the centers for disease control and prevention say 16 more kids

have now died from influenza. that brings the total so far to 53. and ahead of tomorrow super bowl pop star pink -- let me say that again, ahead of tomorrow's super bowl pop star pink saying she too is battling the flu right now. maybe i'm battling the flu. on instagram she posted, trying to practice the flu away. the 38-year-old will single star spangled banner at the big game. we'll have a live report from minneapolis coming up in our next hour from there. coming up with all of washington focusing on the nunes memo and the continued fallout, daca and the threat of another government shutdown hangs in the balance. what's not getting done on capitol hill amid all the political chaos next. me and my wife were actually saving for a house. but one day we were sitting there and we decided that, you know what? something needed to be done about what was going on in our inner-city. instead of buying a house, we decided to form this youth league. what is he doing wrong? he should shed the block. exactly. it's volunteer, we don't get a paycheck. it's one hundred percent from the heart. football shaped my life and i'm praying that it will shape these kids' lives as well.

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if your uc or crohn's treatment isn't working for you, ask your gastroenterologist about entyvio. entyvio. relief and remission within reach. we have more news on an nbc news exclusive. the top democrat on the house judiciary committee releasing a rebuttal 15 minutes ago. it challenges the conclusions on the memo that came out on friday. yesterday president trump declassified the republican house intel committee memo that alleged the fbi and the justice department abused power to target former trump campaign

adviser carter page. trump reacting to that memo yesterday saying a lot of people should be ashame ed of their actions. the tax on doj officials by trump and others having an effect on public opinion as well. 40% of republicans have a favorable opinion of the fbi. with us now is the former executive dlerkt of the democratic party. what do you make, first of all, of this survey, this new numbers that came out so far in that the fbi is not looking like it's as favorable as it was before. >> that is the plan of the trump administration. to basically discredit the fbi specifically with law enforcement committee more broadly. it's troubling because first of all, any american should find this very troubling because my guess is if the memo that was

indeed a political memo, alluded to earlier, i imagine this is a year-long campaign to try to gin up momentum along trump supporters and enablers going into the 2018 midterm elections. and to use the law enforcement community to do that. >> so leading up to the memo was big on both sides, left and right. then the memo came out. if you're in the middle to moderate, you're looking at what was in it. some are saying there's thot much there. so in the end, did this hurt more than it should have? because now there's a lot of energy if you're on the right for this memo. >> i think it was a lot of fanfare. there was a lot of fizzle and lost in translation. i really think that what i have noticed about that and what you said is the fact that it's not really doing anything to trump's base. you alluded to that.

>> not much would change them. >> but that's interesting. when you have an investigation like this going on and this is a pretty big deal. when you've got a lot of the things, first of all, a lot of people, this is so overwhelming and it's in the weeds so much that a lot of people unless you follow it -- >> you're just seeing the head line. >> you're seeing the head line. it kind of went out with a fizzle. i still think that even with this out there, i still think that the republicans are still going to do well in the midterms because if you get. something like this, you'd think they just might have said something. >> why on a friday was this released here? you'd think if it was a big deal, you might want to get it for another news psycycle. if it you release it on a monday or a thursday, at least you get

two days. >> maybe they realized how small they would look if they did the beginning of the week because it really is not much in here. and i would have to say with respect to jerry, he's a constitutional expert. so he's going to make this argument on a legal basis, which i think most people even if they may not be into the legal argument, but it will make sense. what the memo did is maybe not republicans in general, but it makes them seem small. do it and get it out of the way. trump declassified information that he let this memo come out. that's what's so disturbing. maybe an ability to answer those questions. >> the memo that nbc news has exclusively, he does mention rose b stien. there's not enough to get him yet. is this a slow motion saturday night massacre. >> i feel the right and the left

is are not going to be happy until they see hillary clinton behind bars. everyone is going for the jugular. that's part of the problem. if this -- you have wrong doing on both sides. we could sit here all day for another hour and go here's where the clinton campaign did and the trump campaign did. we can go toe to toe and meet each other with issues. kcollusion, it's not a crime, w have already got flynn and papadopoulos and all these characters, but you don't have trump yet. and then you have the dnc issue. >> the report that's about to come out. head line? >> i think it will be a continuation of what has been done in a piece by piece dismantling of the memo. with a slightly more political ting. >> 10 seconds. >> i think that you're going to see a continuation of this and i think we have a long year to go before this is over. >> we're in february, ladies and

gentlemen. thank you both. next the thbz exclusive. the top democrat on the house judiciary committee releasing a rebuttal to the republican fisa memo. and the man behind that memo. who is is congressman devin nunes. what members of his district think of his role in all of this. found. and it's exactly what you're looking for. i've been meaoh no.o talk to you. well, you know, you're getting older. um, you might be experiencing some, ah, sensations. can't wait to be rescued? esurance roadside assistance lets you know when help will arrive. that's insurance for the modern world. esurance. click or call.

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msnbc world head kwaquarters.

thank you for staying with us. we're going to start with an nbc news exclusive. right there you're looking at the democrats' most detailed public house to chairman devin nunes' controversial memo that came out friday. nbc news obtaining this rebuttal written by the top democrat on the house judiciary committee. congressman jerry nadler. breaking that story for us about an hour ago. we had r more time to digest it and look through it. when you look through the six pages here he makes four core points. what stands out in response? this is a rebuttal to nunes's memo that came out yesterday. >> that's right. it's a memo about a memo. the key