trillion in new wealth since my election. >> what, me worried? the treasury secretary has to assure the economy on the ups and downs of the dow. >> i'm not overly concerned on the market fundamentals. i think we are fundamentally strong. and all joking aside, since when is accusing your political enemies of treason humor? according to the white house when you're president trump. >> un-american. someone is a treasonist? yeah, i guess, why not? can we call that teesreason? why not. and good day, everyone. i'm andrea mitchell in washington. moving into positive territory in the morning before another dip, now the dow is back up.

up a marginal 17, 15, whatever. today's trading following the single largest drop in the dow. a scary headline, but not among the top 20% losses. joling kent is live at the stock exchange. jo ling, this is one way to describe it as a roller coaster. >> reporter: when the bell rang, we saw immediate sink into correction territory. from there, less than an hour later, it surged back up to positive territory. you're seeing a narrow and wide range of trading today. over the last hour or so, i'm just looking at the boards right now, and it shows we're trading within a pretty narrow range of about 200 points right now. so what we're seeing is the market trying to find the place to settle. they were down in the red and back down in the red right now just flipping over from green.

and all of this is happening in the context of a new federal reserve chairman, andrea. jerome powell this morning and yesterday, there is concern from investors how much he'll raise rates over the year. will it be three times or four times this year? we have seen a strong jobs report, very good unemployment that continues to hold steady very low. and finally, good news on wages that are up, which means rates could go up to make the cost of borrowing more expensive. so that would make stocks a little less attractive. right now the dow is up just slightly. the s&p 500, however, that broader index, down just slightly. >> and what ali velshi was talking about earlier is that we still have the fear of what is going to happen later in the afternoon when computerized buying and selling kicks in. >> reporter: absolutely, yeah. there is a lot of volatility expected later this afternoon. i was just talking to a couple traders just now who say even though the water seems to be relatively calm and we are relatively unchanged right now,

a lot could change between now and then depending on how a lot of investors and traders feel. of course, we have a lot of automated trading going on as well. if you do see the market continue to slide, if it goes back down in that direction, you see automattive triggers to trigger selling and buying of different stocks. that coulds aer bait whatever direction the market is headed. >> jo ling, thank you so much. joining me is kristen welker and mike memaly as the market looks at the turmoil in the midst of the continuing drama about the mueller investigation. kristen, first to you about what nbc news first reported january 8th, the negotiations understandably between the president's lawyers and the mueller team about when, how and if the president should, in fact, agree to be interviewed. how much choice does he have in what's the current state of play? >> reporter: well, "the new york times" came out with a story

overnight, andrea, that his lawyers are advising him against having an in-person interview with special counsel robert mueller. that's consistent with what we have been reporting. we have been reporting all along the president's legal team has been looking for alternatives to a face-to-face interview with the special counsel. for example, the president submitting written answers to questions or potentially an affidavit. all this is consistent with what we have been reporting all along. based on my conversations overnight, i'm told these negotiations are still very much ongoing, they are very sensitive in nature. and frankly, andrea, there hasn't been a final decision made. what is striking, though, of course is that the president himself just a few weeks ago when he surprised reporters including myself here at the white house and spoke to us about the possibility of meeting with the special counsel face-to-face, he said he looks forward to it and said he would do so under oath.

what we are increasingly learning is there is a lot of reservation about that within his legal team, that's according to "the new york times." and "the times" cites this is a president known for speaking off the cuff and for contradicting himself, quite frankly, and there's real concern that could get him into legal jeopardy. that's the state of play, but again, based on my conversations, andrea, there's still no final decision here. these negotiations are ongoing and they are very sensitive. >> and couldn't this all be part of a negotiating strategy as they try to get a better deal, if you will, from the mueller team in terms of the way he has interviewed, if he's interviewed the grand jury, that would be a way to define it. >> reporter: that's exactly right. and look among the topics they are trying to hammer out and find agreement on are things like the scope of the interview, the length of the interview, the topics, for example, that would be up for discussion. would there, for example,

andrea, be a split portion of this interview, one section that might be written responses to questions. another portion that may be in person, so those are among the options they are weighing. but you're absolutely right, this may be a tough negotiating tactic. obviously, that's the job of his attorney, that's how they see this moving forward. their goal to protect the president, but it all underscores the fact that this is very much and investigation getting closer to the oval office, in terms of the timeline, we have been told two to three weeks. so you have to anticipate they are getting closer to a final resolution and agreement to all of this, andrea. >> at the same time, mike on the hill, we expected steve bannon to be scheduled to appear, he's not appearing today before house intelligence. again, disagreements over what kinds of questions he can be asked. the white house insisting on executive privilege, even though he's no longer in the white house. >> that's right, andrea.

it was january 16th when steve bannon first appeared before the house intelligence committee as part of their russia investigation. and you remember they suspended that interview because steve bannon and his lawyer were refusing to cooperate with questions both about his time during the transition and also in the white house. now, they issued a subpoena for him on the spot, initially for two days. they extended that one week and extended it another week and today they are extending it a third time as they continue to have the negotiations with the white house about exactly what the questions might be. in fact, my own understanding based on the negotiations that involve both the house intelligence committee's lawyers and the house lawyer itself, the general counsel, they are going through the specific questions they want to ask bannon, if and when if he were to return here. it is notable because of what republicans were saying last night when we asked them if we expect bannon to come. they said, we issued a subpoena and it has to mean something. if witnesses refuse to cooperate with our subpoenas, then no one is going to come.

24 hours later, not even, we are seeing them extend the subpoena rather than take the next step, which would be potential will i to hold steve bannon in contempt of congress for refusing to cooperate. >> and kristen, at the white house, they are trying to sort through what is the chief of staff john kelly signaling today about immigration, the potential for some kind of agreement on dreamers or no agreement on dreamers and what is happening with the deadline on a short-term continuing resolution? >> reporter: right. signaling the possibility for extending that deadline on dreamers, andrea, democrats want the thorny issue of immigration, of daca, to be dealt with as part of the spending bill, but of course the government runs out of money in two days now. and there is no sign that they are anywhere closer to striking a final agreement. so that is among the possibilities that are being floated. the house really trying to draw a hard line here. they want to force democrats to vote on another short-term

spending measure. and the thinking there in the calculation on the part of republicans is that democrats aren't going to have to stomach to shut down the government once again over this issue. so we'll have to see how this plays out. the broad thinking here on both sides of pennsylvania avenue, andrea, is that they will find a way to overt a government shutdown. but obviously the toughest issue they have to deal with is on immigration. no indication that democrats are threatening to shut down the government this time, but we'll have to see what happens, andrea. >> kristen welker on the watch at 1600 pennsylvania avenue. and mike memoli, thank you so much as well. meanwhile, minnesota democratic senator amy kobishar is joining me from capitol hill. senator, welcome. >> thank you, andrea. >> let's talk about the president and robert mueller as the negotiations are obviously happening behind the scene and there may be some disagreement in the president's legal team as to whether he should or should not sit down.

how much -- what actions does he have if he decided not to be interviewed by robert mueller, is that it? or does mueller have the right to subpoena him and we go to court? >> well, first of all, you can see why it is important to hear from the president if you're conducting this investigation. when you have his former campaign chair that's been charged, you have the former national security adviser that has been charged, you have someone who is an adviser, papadopoulos, who we now know is meeting in a bar with a foreign diplomat and telling him he had dirt on hillary clinton, the russians had it. there's a numerous points of involvement from that trump campaign. that's why he wants to talk to him. it doesn't surprise me in the report i read today that his lawyers are saying, i think the report was that they were concerned he could say something that wasn't true, what he said before, we know this is

happening publicly many times. and the stake here isn't just a pinnochio for misreporting, the mistake is that he would be under oath. so there are things short of that, including a written question and answer, but i would hope that he would a i agree to appear as he said publicly that he would. >> do you think robert mueller and his team should agree to written questions and answers without follow-ups? >> no, i doubt they would agree to anything that they believe would short-change the investigation. but i think it should be left in their hands the best way to proceed to get to the bottom of the facts. >> as a former prosecutor and attorney general in minnesota, are the legal precedences from the prior eras, do those apply here if he were to refuse? could this become a legal issue

that could potential willy go all the way to the supreme court? >> you have the situation where a lot of people around him have been questioned, put under oath and charged. and i believe the same legal rulings would apply. >> i want to ask you about the president's speech in ohio yesterday. at the sate of the union, we went back to the tape, but there was a moment when you applauded and some of your colleagues did not. so you were not one of the democrats who just sat frozen, but how did you file, i think we have that tape now, if we have the tape of the clip from the ohio speech yesterday billed as a tax reform speech, but then was hardly a policy speech, it was a political speech, but here's what the president said how the democrats responded to the state of the union. >> you have half the room going

totally, crazy wild, they loved everything and want to do something great for our country, and you have the other side, even on positive news, really positive news like that, they were like death and un-american, un-american. somebody said treasonist, yeah, i guess, why not? >> now they say this is tongue and cheek. what is your feeling about the way the president throws the words around? >> okay, first of all, the word treason is a very serious word. and while some of us chose to stand at times, especially when he was honoring heroes for our country or in my case when he talked about doing something about prescription drugs where i don't think either party has done enough to bring down the costs of prescription drugs, but i certainly respect my colleagues for their decision. they weren't yelling at the president, right? they were just exercising their right to clap or not clap or

stand or not stand. it is as simple as that. and those of us who decided not to stand for the claims he made on the stock market and being responsible for that, that was smart given what happened this week. i think it was jay carney who said the dow doubled during obama's time, but they were smart enough to know that doesn't always mean what the economy is doing and that a president can't claim full responsibility with what's happening for the stock market when it goes up if you are not willing to own it when it goes down. >> as a member of the joint ed committee, what about that? he's broken precedent by bragging about the market continuously on the up side and using it as the definition of the economy, the state of the economy. and most people think that the fundamentals of the economy are good, but there's the risk of inflation and there is an

overwhelming debt and deficit both and a lack of seriousness about the fiscal sobriety. and some people believe despite how feel-good it is that the tax cuts, in fact, were at the wrong time in the economic cycle. >> exactly. so first of all, he has done 50 tweets, over 50 tweets about how the stock market and how he's responsible for that. so he has clearly taken a different road as you said. but secondly, when i look at this, yes, the economy is stable and getting better ever since the downturn, slowly but surely, slowly but surely. but now i see two threats, one is the additional $1.3 trillion in debt added by the tax bill. and a lot of economists are saying that in part is fueling the jittery market. and then the second piece of this is we still have this great disparity with the have and have-nots. we still have the fact that whatever they have done here, they have not helped people to

bring down the cost of college. it has not helped people to bring down the cost of prescription drugs. while he may say that in his speech, he's done nothing about it in terms of proposing something concrete that we could pass. so those major pillars here, doing something about the debt as we were attempting to do the last few years, as opposed to adding to it for $1.5 trillion and then doing something to help the middle class with the cost of things, i don't see those as being things they are focused on. and i think that is what we should be focused on. >> amy klobuchar, thank you for being on. >> thank you, andrea, great to be on. thank you. coming up, dangerous precedent? why one member of his party says he shouldn't have released that controversial memo. congressman jonathan dent joins me next. and you don't have time for a cracked windshield.

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oh, but did we catch them in the act or what? oh, we caught them in the act. they are very embarrassed. they never thought they were going to get caught, we caught them. hey, we caught them on so much, like the great sleuth. >> president trump hinting at what many suspected, that the white house played a role in the controversial republican memo.

this as democrats move a step closer to putting out their own rebuttal memo. is that a good idea? joining me now, republican congressman charlie dent. congressman, thank you for joining us. i was talking to one democrat who thought it was a bad idea to prolong this agony over the memos and it would reinforce information that was already, you know, put out by the republican memo improperly this democrat thought, and everyone should drop it and that the republican memo itself was such a bomb that it fell of its own weight. i don't know what you think. >> well, andrea, i think the whole issue has been overblown. i never would have released either of these memos. frankly, there is concern about the abuse of the fisa process, but we just reauthorized the fisa law, when, late last year. so why wouldn't we have taken this issue up back then? or if there is a concern, why

not do a real investigation in the committee of jurisdiction, judiciary, and then issue a real report, not some three-and-a-half page memo that seems to be cherry-picked with a lot of omissions. so i think that is -- i think there's been a mistake. >> well, you and i had not talked about this, i have been arguing privately of what happened during the fisa reauthorization. why didn't the republican chairman bring it up then? it was just reauthorized and that's a fen-year process, ten-year process, and that's plenty of time to look at it. >> i agree. had there been level of the potential abuse of the fisa process, i'm not saying there was, but had there been a concern, we should have taken that up during the reauthorization. and the fisa members realize this could have jeopardized passage or reauthorization of the law, so it is disingenuous

in my view. >> and now the democrats are frustrated that the republicans got their side out and are trying to put their side out, but again, why not move on to the things that people seem to really care about? more importantly, which is the mueller investigation, the efforts to try to undermine rosenstein perhaps, and also the dreamers, the lack of a budget spending. >> yeah, absolutely. andrea, here we are, a couple days away from this continued resolution lapsing, and we need a tap steal, a budget agreement. the house later is going to pass a bill until march 23rd, lit go to the senate. the senate will strike out the defense provision and send it back here. then the house has to vote on a clean bill, hopefully before the government shuts down on thursday. so again, we have bigger issues to deal with.

this cap steel, providing for the omnibus deal, not a cr, which we seem to do aud naseum. >> and we are hearing that the mueller team is likely to meet with steve bannon next week. bannon was expected to show up, he was subpoenaed to show up or his subpoena was agreed to to get him to show up before the senate intelligence committee. and that is still being negotiated with white house objections. should the focus now be on him going in front of -- bannon going in front of mueller and dealing with that? which is less partisan, obviously? >> yeah, i guess my argument to this, andrea, is this. i don't know what the status of the bannon situation is. he may or may not appear in

front of the committee today, but we are talking about the tax reform and jobs. and as we are talking about the memos, this is self-inflicted. this is not something the president did, this came out of the house where we created this whole issue, distracting from the message that our leadership is telling us to focus on, which is the economy, jobs, tax reform and talk about memos again. and we're caught up under all the matters related to mueller. by the way, i support mueller's investigation and should leave him alone uninterrupted and unimpeded and see what he finds. then we'll deal with the findings at that time. >> and as a republican congress member for now, i know you're leaving congress at the end of your term from pennsylvania, do you have any reaction to the u.s. supreme court upholding the ruling that said that the republicans had gerrymandered the seats, that's been a big issue with the republican party in pennsylvania wanting to challenge that decision. >> yeah, justice scalia denied

the stay. so as it stands now, the legislature and the governor have until february 15th, next week, to come up with an alternative map. they will not come up with an alternative map, so the supreme court through a special master will draw the mass. and i expect some seats will become more democratic. the seat that i hold, my seat is pretty marginal to begin with in the swing district, it probably becomes a little less republican, pretty much, probably close to a dead even, i suspect, under some scenarios. but it's hard, but it's hard to take too many of the republican seats away in pennsylvania because democrats are not very well distributed within the commonwealth of pennsylvania. even after we draw some of these maps, you're not going to make them that much more democratic in many cases, particularly western pennsylvania. >> as we saw in the last

election, in fact. thank you so very much. good to see you, charlie dent. >> good to see you, andrea. thank you. owning it, president trump is taking plenty of credit for the stock market's rise. is he actually to blame for its plunge? we'll talk about that coming up next on "andrea mitchell reports" on msnbc. dominika: i saw something i was not supposed to. (music) dominika: they gave me a choice. dominika: die...or become a sparrow. (music) nathaniel: in moscow there's a program, nathaniel: they call them sparrows. trained to seduce and manipulate. nathaniel: that is what she is. she's out of your league. (music) you have a gift. (music) vanya: you see through people. take your life back. (music) i'll find a way. (music) vanya: you're always one step ahead. (music) dominika: you're right. (music) rated r.

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we are doing fantastically. the stock market hit another all-time high. the stock market is at an all-time high and continues to go up, up, up. you're seeing what is happening with the stock market. people are appreciating what we're doing. >> president trump has broken an unwritten rule of past presidents who don't brag about the stock market knowing what goes up can come down. for mr. trump, it's been a form of reality tv, market watch, if you will. joining me is jillian ted, manager for the u.s. times, and katherine who is an opinion writer for "the post." the market is back up considerably. so it's been on a roller-coaster ride all day today. we don't know how it's going to close, but this is such a risky business for the president to define the economy by the stock

market. >> oh, it's completely nuts what he's done in terms of talking about the stock market as a barometer of his success because, you know, every president, every trader knows that you can't control the stock market. and there's all kinds of factors feeding into it. and he's certainly gone very quiet about the stock market over the last day. but the much bigger question is what is driving the stock market and these crazy gyrations we have seen. the key time to watch will be 3:00 to 4:00 when a lot of the computerized programs kick in. and some of what we have seen has been the unwinding of some derivative programs linked to something called the vix volatility. that's a pretty specialized thing to have a big impact. computerized markets, a bit like self-driving cars, where the programs are on autopilot, but the big question is, are investors about to run squared

about inflation? if so, that's going to be something that goes on a lot longer than just a few gyrations up and down today. >> the irony was that it was a good jobs report, better wage earnings on friday, that seemed to spook the market, all of a sudden it drove people from equities. >> it's a little counter inintuitive. part of the reason why markets are possibly anticipating more volatility is because wages are going up again. we have a new fed chair and don't know exactly how the fed chair will react, how nervous could he be about inflation. the outgoing, his predecessor, janet yellen was very dubbish, meaning she may be willing to tolerate prices rising a little bit more than jay powell, the new guide would. so we don't know exactly how he might react to that, and beyond that, we don't know how much he as leader of the fed might feel a pressure to offset or counter

the fact that we have a fiscal stimulus coming. we have huge tax cuts and more fiscal spending in the form of infrastructure and possibly a wall and military investment, et cetera. so if congress is going to step on the gas, maybe the fed will feel the need to step on the brakes, especially with inflation coming down the pike. >> in fact, some were writing thatet thatet thatjanet yellen was praised for the national rate of inflation did well. >> he thought she kind of agreed with him. i'm not convinced she entirely did, but she was on the dubbish side of looking at the future. she thought that interest rates were going to stay low for a pretty long time. and inflation was under control. now with this, it's very interesting because he's not said a lot in the last few days about what he thinks about it right now. but the traders, the smart money has gone back to look at the statements in the past, and

those statements in the past from the two, three, four, five years ago would show he was not a fan of quantitative easing. he was concerned that some of the actions of the central bank had blown a big debt bubble and there could be a nasty correction in the markets when that debt bubble began to be hit by financial banks and people started to pay attention to that. so when you look at the statements from the past, you can see he was a pretty good forecaster for what we're seeing right now. the question is, what is he going to do about it? >> and, at the same time, to both of you, you have republicans in both houses of congress not acting like republicans. the heck with the deficit, we don't care, tax cuts here, spending there, let's do the military spending, let's do the wall. nobody is caring about fiscal sobriety right now. >> yes, definite hawks have certainly flown the coop at this point. the republicans only cared about getting deficits under control

with a democrat in the white house. now they have decided to have enormous tax cuts, which they claim will pay for themselves, so that is the way they justify that their commitment to fiscal conservativism. of course, no actual outside independent analyst confirms that, but they have spending plans coming down the pipeline as well. none of that suggests the measures we need when the economy is doing will, when unemployment is low, and that's exactly why markets are worried about what the fed might do to combat all that if inflation is coming. >> one of the reasons we have been talking so much about debt the last two or three or four years is because interest rates have been so low. if those start to rise, then suddenly the dead issue is coming back into focus. >> we have to leave it there. thank you so much for smart talk today. it's great to have you both. thank you, katherine and gillian. coming up, opening the door. is vice president mike pence ready to sit down with the north koreans? you're watching "andrea mitchell

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talking. but i haven't requested any meeting. but we'll see what happens. >> coming a long way from fire and fury, mike pence in asia on his way to what could be direct talks with the north koreans at the olympics. rex tillerson hinted at that earlier in the day in a news conference in peru. joining me is an nbc contributor ed price and richard stengle, an msnbc political analyst as well. rick, we're talking about diplomacy here. something that doesn't take place very often, but what pence quickly said is if they were to talk, he would be talking about their need to be denuclearize before anything could happen. he's bring iing warmbier's fath

with him. he's fielding a joint team in south korea. >> the north korean propaganda has been successful. i think they are trying to talk, and that is a good thing. the openness of pence and tillerson to talks is a good thing. winston church hill said jaw jaw is better than war war. but you need an english accent to say that. it's better to keep talking. robert wood gave this hyper military talk, kind of daring in north korea. so this foreign policy goes on two tracks in this administration. >> and, in fact, they seem to feel that every time they offer any kind of an overture, they have to reinforce their toughness or else they will be countered by a tweet from the feed of the president. >> and i think you're seeing that dynamic precisely play out here, andrea.

it's a strange bit of mixed messaging, opening the door ever so slightly with potential for talks with the vice president of the united states and to north korean delegates. but, at the same time, bringing the father of otto warmbier. but the bigger issue is that over the course of many months, president trump and his hyperbole have had the effect of bilateralizing this challenge, bilateralizing the challenge between the north koreans and south koreans. and there are some in this country who may say, that's a good thing, let's let the interkorean dialogue figure this out, let the north and south talk. but the challenge is that the united states in south korea, we don't have precisely the same interests. they don't precisely align. we need to be much more concerned, for example, with the north's production of icbms or intercontinental ballistic missiles, much more so than the south koreans are. so the problem is that the united states hasn't been at the table all of this time. and that poses a huge risk for

us. >> and the same time, they float the idea of a bloody nose of a, quote, limited nuclear war, whatever that is. and that led to an opposing point of view from victor cha who had been cleared and introduced to the south koreans, very popular, former member of the bush nrc, and now he's out as a potential ambassador. we still don't have an ambassador a year into the administration in one of the most critical parts of the world. >> he was a voice of reason who understood the history of the korean peninsula. i do think the point about the interests of south korea don't aline, but they align 97.5% in what we don't want is a nuclear or military exchange on the korean peninsula with hundreds of thousands if not millions of koreans who lose their lives. so to me that is a much more

urgent concern than the concern of icbms, despite the fact that people in the administration say it's only a few months away. >> rick stengle and ned price, thank you. coming up, reason for treason. was president trump kidding when he called them treasonists? that's coming up next on "andrea mitchell reports" on msnbc.

today the white house tells nbc news that president trump's accusation that the democrats were guilty of treason for not standing and applauding the state of the union was, quote, tongue in cheek. as written in today's "washington post," it is from the treasonous but it is un-american actually to accuse your political opponents of a crime against the nation for constitutionally protected dissent, it should not be necessary to spell this out. we'll get the inside scoop from the white house correspondent for t"the washington post," ann geeran, and you were in ohio when the president gave this speech attacking the democrats. >> yeah, there was a speech that was supposed to be about his tax cuts, he was visiting a company that has recently given its 126,000 workers bonuses, which

the cay eo of the company says is sharing the wealth from the company's benefits it gets from the tax cuts. that's what it was supposed to be about. it went wildly off script. it was really a it was really a campaign-style rally in which the president was feeding on a supportive crowd and it got whipped up and whipped up to the point that he ended up accusing democrats of being traitors and un-american for failing to clap and stand up when he gave lines during the state of the union address that he thought all americans should applaud. i will say in the room, that did not get a huge response. there was wild applause for some of the stuff he said. there were people glancing side to side when that part came out. >> it just seems to me that for him to be giving a tax reform speech, this was not an rnc

speech, but, nick, most of this speech yesterday was about beating the democrats in the midterms, whipping people up and talking about the mueller probe and the memo or hinting at that. >> it shows that the president's greatist skill in office so far has been to step on his own message, step on his own good news as often as possible. it shows that he's really consumed with grievance over slights and over the mueller probe. he cannot get it off of his mind. the fact he used the word treasonous is inappropriate. i think he had a twinkle in his eye when he said it. that doesn't mean it's funny. it goes to the question of whether he understands that people don't owe their loyalty to him. that people who oppose his policies are not obligated to stand up and cheer at his speeches. he seems to not get that on some level. >> i wanted to share something with both of you that's just happened on capitol hill apparently. general kelly was there, the white house chief of staff,

talking to reporters, and frank thorpe, our senate producer, was there, and has recounted what happened. because he was talking about all the compromises that are floating around there from both the white house and members and senators. and he suggested, first of all, that the president should not have suggested a path to citizenship. he said we were asked for the president's perspective on taking care of the daca issue and he sent over what has been his four pillars. i think the first part of that, which was stunning, and no one expected it, was there were 650,000 official daca residents and the president sent over to what amounts to 2 1/2 times that number to 1.8 million. then he said the difference between 690, those who signed up, and 1.8 million were the people some would say were too afraid to sign up. understandably from people who are afraid of our law

enforcement. of i.c.e. then he said, we're too lazy to -- i'm quoting him here, we're too lazy to get off their asses when they didn't sign up. this is the quote from the white house chief of staff. then he went on to say, the president shockingly said, okay, 1.8 million. then probably the biggest shock was in the path to citizenship. that's beyond what anyone could have imagined, whether you're on the right or the left. well, the president he serves, proposed a path to citizenship. he's now taking a position that's more in line with the freedom caucus i guess on the house republicans who pulled him back for this negotiation with dick durbin and others. where does he come off laying down these lines for the president of the united states? it's a very pew cool yar moment. >> i've lost count how many times the white house or different officials in the white house have moved the line on what is and isn't accessible in

some omnibus immigration package. certainly during the state of the union, the president seemed to be taking a more expansive approach than he himself had taken the week before. now a week later, his choof of staff appears to be moving the line again and as you pointed out using some language that will at least raise eyebrows if not offend some people. certainly we've known for a long time favor, far fewer people signed up for daca protection than were eligible for it. the bests ma estimate of how ma people are eligible for it say about 1.3 million. so it is, you know, maybe roughly double the number who have actually signed up for that protection. and this is all happening against the march 5th deadline that john kelly also said is not likely to be extended for when the -- those work permits and deportation protections run out. >> let me play the john kelly

sound so that people can judge for themselves. >> the difference between 690 and 1.8 million were the people that some would say were too afraid to sign up, others were too lazy to get off their asses but they didn't sign up. >> nick. >> it's incredibly kind of loaded words he used, to say people were lazy. you have to ask yourself, if you were in the country illegally and someone gives you a chance to sign up and avoid deportation and you don't do it, can you really imagine that the failure to do so is out of laziness as opposed to fear. which he also said, by the way, in his comments, it seemed to me a more likely cause that people don't understand the rules or were misinform order are afraid of what will happen if they actually get on the rolls for daca and someone goes back and reverses it later. >> or someone is elected with a completely different point of view. >> yes. >> which is what happened last year. >> and has your information and knows where you live. so you can understand, you know,

the reluctance people have to sign up for this. >> ann this is not the first time we've seen that john kelly is a lot more hard-line on this immigration issue, as a former homeland security secretary, then some may have thought given his military background, and the fact he was in southern command and knows the border well. that seems to have hardened his point of view. >> yes, i mean, we can certainly count him firmly in the count among the president's close advisers who are immigration hard-liners. it's one of the things, frankly that endeared him to the president early on. they were not well acquainted before he was selected for the cabinet post. and he very quickly became one of the stars in the administration. in large part because he was a big supporter and backed up the whole border wall idea and the president liked that. >> and, nick, it will be

controversial with a lot of people on the hill, including republican, as they try to negotiate this dreamer's deal and the continuing resolution and everything else that's at stake. for him to say that he doesn't know where the president came up with the path to citizenship. that may not even be acceptable in the oval office. >> that's right. the white house keeps going back and forth between saying the president will take this and the president has a plan and the public not knowing what the plan is exactly. policy has to come from the top. and what you see in this white house a lot is people substituting their own minds for the president's and the president allowing it to happen often which creates this kind of confusion. it's very hard to negotiate something unless the white house is clear on where it stands. >> and the president is clear on it. >> and the president, yes. >> nick, ann duran, thank you both very much. i want to take a moment, prer personal privilege, to wish a happy birthday to my friend, tom brokaw. for more than 50 year, tom has brought his intellect, his humor, his charm, his wisdom, to nbc news and msnbc.

starting as a local anchor, then as white house correspondent during the nixon years, anchor of the "today" show and of course the longtime anchor of "nbc nightly news." no one was better at chronicling the history of our times. whether it was conducting the first television interview with gorbachev as the soviet union was about to break apart. capturing the significance of the greatest generation on the beaches of normandy. bicycling through tiananmen square after the media were banned. or declaring the failure of our own prague past cation on election nice in 2,000. tom reflected back on what he observed these many years withg show. >> i thought immediately by 1968 -- we lost dr. king, kennedy, 15,000 people died in vietnam that year, americans of

ours. so i've always thought about that. and then that rush of extraordinary change where the soviet union collapsed, china reinvented itself and then finally 9/11. and those are the big, big markers in my career i'll always remember. >> tom brokaw, whose strength and vision is a continuing lesson for us all, happy birthday, tom. that does it for this edition of andrea mitchell reports. remember, follow the show online on facebook and twitter @mitchellreports. peter er alexander is next. >> what a nice tribute, we echo that, happy birthday to tom brokaw today. i'm peter alexander in for my friend craig melvin. steve bannon will likely meet with special counsel mueller next week. and the new report digs into why the president's lawyers may be telling him to refuse a similar meeting. plus, counting down. as we get closer to a government shutdown, will we see a vote to

keep the lights on? we will focus on that. it comes as the white house chief of staff says that the president has no plans to extend protections for those dreamers beyond the march 5th deadline. and ready for launch. a new rocket could revolutionize spaceflight and takeoff could happen within the next hour. how this rocket could take us further than ever before. we start today with a big question on capitol hill. who will and who will not meet with the special counsel. just moments ago, nbc news learned from a source familiar with the process that steve bannon is likely to meet with robert mueller's team next week. contrast that with his former boss. as president trump prepares to talk immigration and crime later this hour. "the new york times" is reporting that the president's lawyers are telling him not to sit down with mueller. quote, his lawyers are concerned that the president, who has a history of making false statements and contradicting himself, could be charged with lying to