what was that the white house said about the rob porter scandal? the fbi tries to add a dose of truth. >> bplus, russia is ramping up its intentions to meddle with the united states midterms. and the big question now, what if anything does the president intend to do about it? >> and one of the president's closest allies, benjamin netanyahu borrows a speech from the trump play book after it's recommended he be charged with corruption. good morning, everyone.

it's wednesday, february 14th. we bedin with a senate hearing in washington, d.c. yesterday where the fbi director struck down white house claims that president trump's team had received little information about domestic violence allegations against former staff secretary rob porter. this after chief of staff john kelly denied having any detailed knowledge to reporters on friday. and press secretary claimed on monday that they believed the process was still ongoing. here are those comments followed by fbi director christopher wray's own. >> in november, an update on some of the investigations. and the update was that there was some things that -- that needed to be looked into. literally that was it. >> the process for the background was ongoing. and the white house had not received any specific papers

regarding the completion of that background check. >> the fbi submitted a partial report on the investigation in question in march. and then a completed background investigation in late july. that as soon thereafter we received requests for followup. and provided that information in november and that we administratively closed the file in january, and then earlier this month we received some additional information and we passed that on as well. >> faced with those contradictions yesterday, sanders admitted that the information went to a specific branch at the white house, but did not have firm answers about who knew what when. >> you said that the investigation was on going. christopher wray said it was closed in january. so who's telling the truth here?

>> both. as i said, the fbi portion was closed. the white house personnel security office who is the one that makes a recommendation for adjudication had not finished their part. >> let me clarify one more point. you said yesterday you didn't get any paperwork from the fbi. wray said that you did submit paperwork. >> again, that would come through the white house personnel security office, which had not completed their investigation, not pass that information to the white house. >> but you acknowledge that you did receive paperwork. >> again, the white house, i think you need to be very clear about there's multiple groups here. the white house personnel security office, which is staffed per officials may have received information, but they had not completed their process and a recommendation to the white house for adjudication. >> did anyone of the white house

personnel security office have any communication with anyone in the west wing about rob porter's clearance between the fbi submitted its reports and -- >> i'm not aware of any communication. i can't say definitely but i'm not aware of any communication. >> all right. so chief of staff john kelly continued to stand by his conduct in dealing with the allegations against rob porter this week. when asked on monday if the white house should have handled porter's situation any differently john kelly said no. it was all done right. politico reports that white house staff worked furiously to

save porter, quote, in the hours immediately after the daily mail published a photograph of porter's first ex-wife with a black eye, white house press secretary sarah huckabay sanders hastily arranged an off the record meeting with porter and four reporters. in that meeting porter relayed his version of events and fielded questions from the group. before porter seen walking together into that briefing room, porter would resign but would continue working on the staff. yesterday the white house press secretary hedged defending kelly's story. >> is the white house still maintaining that john kelly really had no ideas of these allegations of domestic abuse until this story broke? >> i can only give you the best information that i have and that's my understanding. >> the other part of this story is the u.s. security clearance process which the director of national intelligence dan coats says revolutionary change telling the associated press, quote, we have a broken system

and i think everybody's come to agree with that now and that we have moved this to a very top priority because it is really undermining our ability to get the right people into the right place at the right time. at yesterday's senate hearing coat also commented on the large number of people with interim security clearances in sensitive positions throughout the government. >> i think sometimes it is necessary to have some type of preliminary clearance in order to fill a slot, but i have publicly stated if that is the case, the access has to be limited in terms of the kind of information they can be in a position to receive. >> all right. and staying with that hearing for a moment, director coats was also among those top intelligence officials sounding the alarm over russia's election interference warning that moscow is bent on disrupting the midterm contest later this year but they say the white house has shown little appetite for doing anything about it. andrea mitchell has more from

washington. good morning. >> reporter: good morning. the nation's intelligence chief sworn in congress that russia is preparing to attack our upcoming midterm election. a threat largely ignored so far by the trump white house. from the midterms russia is again trying to disrupt our elections. >> frankly, the united states is under attack. under attack by entities that are using cyber to penetrate virtually every major action that takes place in the united states. >> the russian awe tack plan using bots, fake accounts on facebook and other social networks, planting disinformation to sew discord. what they did in 2016. >> there is a wide consensus among the intelligence community that russia interfered with the election of the president of the united states. >> that's exactly the point. >> and when pressed officials acknowledge the president has never asked them to stop russia from doing it again.

>> direct you to take specific actions and blunt russian activities that are ongoing? >> we taking a lot of actions to blunt -- >> directed by the president? >> not as specifically directed by the president. >> in fact, mr. trump has often echoed vladimir putin's denials. >> i believe that president putin really feels and he feels strongly that he did not meddle in our election. >> experts say americans need to be even more alert online. >> for a lot of people means they can't trust any of the information they're receiving about the events of the day and i think that that means a lot of people are frankly very confused. >> and another warning, this one about north korea. the intelligence chief telling congress that kim jong-un is

pr preparing more nuclear tests despite his zsister's smile at the olympics. >> let's bring in the coe author of politico's play book. good morning to you. obviously making a lot of news on so many different fronts whether it's the reporter story, whether it's the russian meddling and what's been the response? i mean, how much of a wakeup call was it for lawmakers who have been saying russia is going to try to interfere in these elections again despite the fact that we're not hearing much from the white house on this. >> reporter: yeah, we've been hearing these wakeup calls for years. ever since the summer of 2016 when there was conclusive evidence that they were trying to meddle in the elections, trump hums has not acknowledged that fact. and i think he views it as legitimizing his own victory if he had a foreign adversary

helping him. >> but it's interesting though that if he doesn't sort of start talking about russian interference it could affect him negatively come midterm election time. so another big issue that came up yesterday was sort of the security clearance process. the director of national intelligence warning that people with interim clearances should have limited access to secret information. so beyond jared kushner who we already know do we have a sense of how many staffers within the white house have only interim security clearance and could this snoel snowball from here? >> there's between 30 and 40 officials and these are mostly white house officials don't have those permanent security clearances. last year they actually prohibited new people from getting interim security clearances because of that national security issue and so for all of those people that we talked about, you know, how many have, you know, things in their closet that like rob porter that

they would not want out there. and so they're still looking into, you know, people's security clearances because jared kushner does not seem to ever -- is ever going to get a permanent security clearance. >> i have a feeling the white house is scrambling to go through all those files. all right. we'll check in with you in about 30 minutes or so. >> the trump administration calls for major changes to the nation's food stamp program. why it's being met with a lot of skepticism. >> and the story president's lawyer tried to keep underwraps. >> i know you either do or don't have a nondisclosure agreement which if you didn't have a nondisclosure agreement, do you have a nondisclosure agreement? >> do i? >> you can't say whether you have a nondisclosure agreement but if you didn't have a

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another story making major headlines this morning the trump administration is looking to drastically scale back the nation's food stamp program replacing it with a blue apron style food delivery system. in other words, foods like pasta, canned meat and beans would be delivered to people's homes. the program called america's harvest box is buried deep within the president's budget and is being met with major skepticism. more than 16 million households would have half of their benefits go towards the food box delivery. the new boxes would go to households that qualify for $90 or more per month in food stamps which represents about 81% of those receiving assistance. the usda claims the new plan would save $129 billion over a decade but critics argue that in the long run the food delivery program would be inefficient and

costly. >> switching gears for a moment. south carolina congressman and president of trump's budget plan, mulvaney recently said he would have voted against the spending bill that was passed last week. democratic senator patty murray of washington state asked the omb director if he would have voted for the president's budget he presented monday if he were still in congress. watch this. >> as a member of congress representing the fifth district of south carolina i probably would have found enough shortcomings in this to vote against it. but my job is to try and fund the president's priorities which is exactly what we did. >> so after the hearing senator murray said it was nice to hear an honest answer in the budget hearing today. i asked if he would vote for president trump's budget if he were in congress and he said that he wouldn't. that's one thing we agree on. however, seeking to clarify his

response, the following statement, just to be clear, director mulvaney was referring to the recent caps dill when answering senator murray's question this morning. naturally he would vote for the president's fiscal 29 budget that he released yesterday. >> and two more suspicious packages being sent to vips. the secret service is investigating who sent a package that turned out to be baby powder. police in the uk are also looking into a package that was sent to an office in the houses of parliament. the powder was later found to be unharmf unharmful. all of this comes after a suspicious package appearing to contain corn starch earlier this week. >> bill, a lot of spring weather popping up across the country. >> warm and umbrella weather. temperatures are mild out there and may have a little surprise on saturday or sunday with a little bit of snow in the

northeast, but that's a couple days away. we'll have to fine tune that forecast. so rainy weather all through the state of tennessee. raining pretty good from nashville, not raining there quite yet. also some showers around little rock. a couple rounds of rain. if we're going to get any flooding out of this it would be in southern portions of ohio, west virginia or southern pennsylvania. that's where we could get one to two inches of rainfall. so on this map the green shows you where the rain is. too warm for that. this is an all rain event. very rare for middle of february. from today at 5:00 p.m. it's raining from mississippi all the way through ohio valley. tennessee valley and into areas of western pennsylvania. then we take some of this mess through d.c. and new york later tonight. then tomorrow another round of rain. that's why they have the best chance for any minor flooding and by the time we get to friday all the clouds and rain are stretched through southern new england. a little colder air moves in on

the backside. may get a little mix here, but that's about it. so it's a very warm forecast map. usually don't get this. this is the warmest minneapolis has been this month. 43 chicago. 50s all the way to boston. a pretty good snow pack out there in the northeast. we'll take a big chunk of that out of the way. a peek at tomorrow's map. 75 oklahoma city and look at the 60s all the way up the eastern seaboard. so a break from winter but it's not going to be a pretty break with all the clouds and rain around. >> it looks like punxsutawney phil was wrong. >> it's early for that. march can be a very cool month. all right. thanks for that. >> put that out there. >> thanks, bill. all right. still ahead, american snow boarder shaun white brings home the gold in historic fashion. >> we're joined live from south korea. we're back in a moment.

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run of his career to win and it's very exciting this morning. >> reporter: yeah, i would argue two best runs of his career. what happened on the halfpipe was absolutely epic. he made history in a couple of ways. he is now the first snowboarder in olympic history to win three gold medals at the winter games and it was gold number 100 for team usa in all winter olympics. he didn't just keep up with the younger competitors, by the way, he kind of blew past them. white is 31 years old. the rest of the team's average age is 21. so the gold puts team usa into fifth place in the medal count. norway leads with 11 overall medals. germany has the most gold medals with six. by now there should have been four medals awarded in the alpine events but there's only been one and the reason is wind. i can tell you that it was dangerous levels of wind here so you can imagine what it was up

on the mountain over the last several hours. shiffrin who was supposed to have her 2018 olympic debut. he's been postponed in the slalom for the second time. that picture says it all. last sunday's slalom was also pish pushed back as well. she's got five races she could be in, but now with this new schedule there will be three in three days. the question is, is that good for her or bad for her? is it going to tire her out and make it impossible for her to do five separate events? there's another argument to be made. the winds are supposed to get a lot calmer. calm winds favor the best skier. no doubt she is the best skier but again, a delay there up in the alpine events and we are so happy to hear that emily sweeney who had that nasty, nasty crash in the luge is doing better. she was taken to the hospital, but she is in good condition. hamlin who was the flag bearer for team usa, she finished 6th

top end her olympics career and one more note on this valentine's day. it seemed to just occur to lindsay vonn that it is valentine's day so she tweeted this. i forgot all about it because i'm at the olympics and i'm single. anyone else out there single and wants to be my valentine #worthashot. i don't know, do you think she'll get any replies? >> i'm sure she's going to get a lot of responses. but you talked about emily sweeney, thank god she's okay. that silenced the crowd when she had that accident just to see her walk away was huge. and then shiffrin, that anticipation can sometimes be the worst thing in the world when you're waiting to just do your run so we'll see how that all plays out. thank you. i know it's late there. it's early here. we really appreciate you. >> i have no idea what time it is right now. >> well, stay warm out there, and we'll check back with you

later on this week when more drama plays out. >> thanks. i got to say, it's got to been 7:30 p.m. there. shaun white's win was unbelievable. he was so emotional hugging his parents after wards as well and shiffrin, i cannot wait to see her ski. >> a lot of excitement. >> the president condemns domestic violence, but why is it so hard for him to say that to himself? >> and israeli police recommend corruption charges against benjamin netanyahu and some would say he's even playing the trump card. we'll explain next. i'm on the move all day long... and sometimes, i don't eat the way i should. so, i drink boost to get the nutrition i'm missing. boost high protein nutritional drink has 15 grams of protein to help maintain muscle and 26 essential vitamins and minerals, including calcium and vitamin d. all with a great taste. boost gives me everything i need...

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welcome back, everybody. it is the bottom of the hour. let's start with the morning's top stories. the white house is working to try and contain the fallout over what officials knew and when about domestic violence allegations against a former top aide. >> but in an extraordinary moment the director of the fbi threw a wrench in what the white house says actually happened. kristen welker has more. >> reporter: the white house on defense amid questions about whether top officials here were trying to protect rob porter whose security clearance was held up amid allegations of spousal abuse and concerns about potential blackmail, all after fbi director christopher wray contradicted the administrati administration's account of porter's ousting. >> the fbi submitted a partial

report on the investigation in question in march, and then a completed background investigation in late july. we administratively closed the file in january. >> reporter: for days the white house has insisted the investigation into porter was still in progress and not completed. >> his background investigation was ongoing. >> it was ongoing. hadn't been completed. >> but press secretary sarah sanders parsing her words insisting those past statements weren't a reference to the fbi's investigation, but rather one that was ongoing within a different office here at the white house. >> christopher wray said it was closed in january so who's telling the truth here? >> both. as i said, the fbi portion was closed. the white house personnel security office who is the one that makes a recommendation for adjudication did not make a recommendation to the white house. >> reporter: but sanders couldn't answer the most critical question, whether the

white house personnel security office alerted top officials including chief of staff john kelly about porter's past. >> i'm not aware of any communication. i can't say definitively but i'm not aware of any communication. >> reporter: the white house has been struggling to explain its story and time line. >> it's obvious that the nation's top secrets were being handled by someone who they knew would never receive a security clearance. >> all right. thanks for that report. >> now, on the subject of the president's personal silence on the women who have accused his former aide of abuse, yesterday sarah huckabay sanders repeated a statement that she claims was quote literally dictated to her by the president. >> does the president believe the women? >> again, the president takes all of these accusations very seriously. he believes in due process. everything else he supports the victims of any type of violence, and certainly would condemn any violence against anyone. >> all right.

but unlike his praise for rob porter on friday, president trump declined two invitations to share his opinions yesterday. >> thank you all very much. thank you. >> mr. president, do you believe rob porter's ex-wives? >> thank you very much. >> thank you very much. >> do you believe rob porter's ex-wives, mr. president? >> and thank you very much. thank you very much. appreciate it. >> do you have a message to domestic violence victims? >> thank you. >> all right. a new worldwide threat assessment conducted by u.s. intel agencies concludes that russia is expected to not only continue but expand its efforts to meddle in the u.s. political system including the upcoming midterm elections. yesterday the top intel officials appeared before the senate intel committee. watch this. >> frankly, the united states is under attack. under attack by entities that are using cyber to penetrate

virtually every major action that takes place in the united states. there should be no doubt that russia perceived that its past efforts as successful and views the 2018 u.s. midterm elections as a potential target for russian influence operations. we expect russia to continue using propaganda, social media, false flag personas, sympathetic spokesmen and other means to influence to try to build on its wide range of operations and exacerbate social and political fissures in the united states. >> do you agree with director that we haven't seen a significant decrease in the russian activity? >> i agree with director pompeo. this is not going to change or stop. >> yes, it is not going to change nor is it going to stop. >> throughout the entire community we have not seen any evidence of any significant change from last year.

>> i agree with director pompeo. >> you've been waiting for that answer. >> i have. i've had that in the pocket for a while, yes, sir. >> have you seen russian activity in the lead up to the 2018 election cycle? >> yes, we have seen russian active aand intentions to have an impact on the next election cycle here. >> director coats? >> yes, we have. >> anyone else? admiral rogers? >> yes, we do need a u.s. government strategy and clear authorities to go achieve that strategy. >> it's common sense. if someone is attacking you and there's no response, it's going to insent vise more contacts. >> right now a lot of -- there are a lot of blank checks. a lot of things that we need to do. >> has the president directed you and your agency to take specific actions to confront and blunt russian influence activities that are ongoing? >> we're taking a lot of specific efforts to blunt

russian -- >> by the president? >> not as specifically directed by the president. >> in responding to a complaint about a campaign finance violation, president trump's personal attorney has acknowledged paying a film actress tens of thousands of dollars in the final days of the 2016 presidential campaign. he made the payment out of his own funds to stormy daniels who claimed that she had happen affair with trump in 2006 shortly after first lady melania trump gave birth to the president's youngest son. daniels has silently hinted at the affairs but cohen has released statements that an affair did not happen and that no quote, hush money was paid. now, the federal election commission is investigating a complaint that the money was an unreported in kind donation to trump's campaign. in a statement cohen said neither the trump organization nor the trump campaign was a

party to the transaction with ms. clifford and neither reimbursed me for the payment either directly or indirectly. the payment to ms. clifford was lawful and was not a campaign contribution or expenditure by anyone. >> a lot of questions around that. the question is why would he even make that payment. it has stalled before the process even really got going asthma jorty leader mitch mcconnell puts a tight timeframe to reach a compromise. the senate's work on a solution for daca would be limited to this week. he also attempted twice to set up votes on the floor of the chamber on an amendment from republican senator dealing with sanctuary cities, an amendment picked by democrats. but chuck schumer rejected saying the language didn't address daca recipients or even border security, the two key elements at the center of this immigration debate. schumer proposed a pair of votes

imp implementing the white house frame work. -- that bipartisan plan includes no funding for president trump's border wall and would likely not get the 60 votes needed to pass. both mcconnell and schumer sounded off on a stalemate yesterday afternoon. >> there's no reason, no reason not to come together and get a solution this week. this has been going on endlessly. they shut down the government over this. i want to see what they want to do. i assume they had an idea here to lay before the senate since they took us into a government shutdown. they actually requested the date that i ended up agreeing to to turn to it. where's the plan? >> what do you think of this timetable that mcconnell is pushing to try to finish this this week? >> well, i think the sooner the better and if we can come up with bipartisan compromise that looks like it's right in the

ballpark of 60, let it rip. less let's go. >> so coming up, senator chris coons will discuss his immigration plan. joining us from washington, good to talk to you. >> reporter: happy valentine's day. >> oh, thank you. >> daniel. >> i appreciate that. oh, was that for me or was that -- >> for both of you. >> look. so we're closing in on this march deadline, the debates having just started this week, already so much back and forth, but a pretty bold deadline in saying that mcconnell wants to get this thing done this week. schumer seems to say he wants to get things done as well. but they can't agree, which is not surprising. what are your predictions that they can get this done in the next three days including today plus get it through the house? >> so i don't think most senators are very optimistic that they will reach a deal this week and with that court ruling a few weeks ago saying that the march 5th deadline was no longer

operative, you're going to have more time, so mitch mcconnell, we should take it with a little bit of salt because i don't think that he is going to let 800,000 dreamers get deported if they can't reach a deal this week. but he wants to kind of increase the pressure for both sides to work together, because there is a deal to be had if you ignore the extremes of both parties. >> before we let you go, give us a quick preview of what you guys are talking about in today's valentine's special politico play book. >> yesterday we had a fun spot flying first class from d.c. to boston. he's been under fire for flying first class around the country and so we are including some stories about that. he -- cbs news reported yesterday that he flew for $7,000 from italy to the u.s. when you're not supposed to fly on foreign airlines. he flu on foreign airlines so he has a taste for travel even

though there's a security threat against him. that's why they justify these first class flights. >> it's a very lavish flight. >> first class? >> no, definitely not, but it is a very nice flight though. i'm not a government official. >> thanks for joining us. >> thanks, guys. in bomb shell news out of the middle east, benjamin netanyahu should be charged with bribery, fraud and breach of trust. it stems from multiple investigations into possible corruption that have been going on for more than a year. police say through 2016 netanyahu and his family received gifts including cigars, champagne and jewelry worth the equivalent of hundreds of thousands of dollars.

in addition, police say that netanyahu worked out a deal with the publisher of an israeli newspaper in exchange for favorable coverage. the prime minister would back a bill that would weaken a rival newspaper. a decision on whether to indict netanyahu which could take about a year rests solely with attorney general, who also is netanyahu's former cabinet secretary. now, he has rejected calls for him to recuse himself from the case. netanyahu has repeatedly denied any wrong doing and yesterday in a live televised address to the nation called the allegations quote, baseless and said this will end. while vowing to lead israel and not step down, he also took a page out of his ally president trump's play book by continuing to berate the authorities investigating him rather saying quote, the police is infected with hallucinated allegations. the police can't be objective. >> some pretty major allegations there. >> a lot of serious developments

there. >> still ahead, an absolutely terrifying scene for passengers aboard one plane as they witnessed their plane's engine coming apart mid flight. >> the dramatic images captured by those on board plus bill karins returns with details on how long this stretch of warm weather will last. stay with us. have you smelled this

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and while some advisers are happy to earn commissions from you whether you do well or not, fisher investments fees are structured so we do better when you do better. maybe that's why most of our clients come from other money managers. fisher investments. clearly better money management. welcome back, everybody. the pilot of united airlines flight 1175 called to an emergency landing yesterday. dramatic images showed a jet engine rattling away without protective covering. take a look right there. so united said the flight landed safely and on schedule in honolulu, hawaii. video images tweeted on the flight seemed to show the right engine of the boeing 777 without its front covering, the casing which is missing as you can see. according to nbc aviation expert losing the casing of an engine

would not normally affect an engine's performance and that the plane and passengers on board would not have been in any danger, but could you imagine that happening on your flight, looking out the window and seeing that happen? >> and the emergency landing, but the fact they were flying to hawaii and that when you think about it that there's not a lot of places to land. >> yeah. >> you have to get to hawaii. a long flight. >> absolutely. unbelievably scary. >> i'd rather not be on that plane. >> all the people on the left side window seats that can't see out the window and all of a sudden everyone is like ah! >> i feel like everybody would want to go to the right. >> or maybe you put the shades down and not know what's going on. >> you just want to pray. >> let's get into this forecast. icy problems. watching the rain through the tennessee valley. umbrella weather today. ohio, western pennsylvania, kentucky, northern portions of mississippi and there in little rock. as far as the rainfall forecast.

heaviest rains will be in the tennessee valley to ohio valley with some of that rain in tonight. this morning there's been a little bit of patchy freezing rain and just a tiniest bit can cause black ice. roads are treacherous and connecticut just a little coating of freezing drizzle. there's now numerous accidents. a very slow drive through this area. if you can take 95 take it instead of taking 81 because it's a lot less treacherous because it was warmer down closer to the coast. so let's talk about this widespread warmth. the red and pink show you above average temperatures. all the way from the rockies to the east coast. warm today. areas like wichita and also down through oklahoma city. 27 degrees warmer than normal and 72 today. that's shorts for lunch. green bay the warmest you've been so far this month and the warmth will end in the northern plains. tomorrow bismark drops to 10

degrees so enjoy today. st. louis though 68 for your thursday. 67 in d.c. that's 25 degrees warmer than it should be. on friday that warmth remains. raleigh, the chance for upper 70s along with areas of north carolina and then the cold air typical of winter will return as we head towards the upcoming week. so pretty crazy swing and then it could be warmer in some of these spots by the time we get to president's day next week. one cool shot this weekend and it warms right up. >> sounds good to me. >> a top trump ally in the house reverses course and takes on one senator for the job. >> details on those stories when we return. stay with us. dark magic told in the time it takes to brew your cup. first, we head to vermont. and go to our coffee shop. and meet dave. hey. why is dark magic so spell-bindingly good, he asks? let me show you. let's go. so we climb. hike. see a bear. woah. reach the top. dave says dark magic is a bold blend of coffee with rich flavors of uganda, sumatra, colombia and other parts of south america. like these mountains, each amazing on their own.

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there's a lot of 2018 campaign news to catch up on. sources say that north dakota's congressman kevin cramer has told friends he has reversed course and challenge democratic senator heidi heitkamp after all. she's running in a state where president trump won with 63% of the vote back in 2016. it had seemed that heitkampp avoided a top-tier challenger when cramer announced he would not run last month and tennessee's bob corker is weighing whether he can seek a third term in the senate despite announcing his retirement. "the new york times" reporting corker's allies believe he will have to win president trump's support referring to the white house as adult day care. do you think he will get the support of the president? corker continued to duck

questions about it. take a listen. >> senator, are you reconsidering running for re-election? >> i don't have anything to talk about today. thank you. >> that's not a no. >> not a no. >> i know. >> meanwhile the senate campaign of marsha blackburn dismissed establishment republicans who fear she can't win to hold corker's seat. a spokesperson said anyone with concerns about her chances, quote, is just a plain sexist pig. >> wow. democrats have flipped another state-level seat and once again it comes in a district president trump won in 2016. in a special election yesterday, democrat margaret good defeated republican james buchanan by more than seven points in a district trump won by nearly five points in 2016. in the district registered republicans out number registered democrats by more than 10,000 and buchanan's father represents the area in the united states house of representatives. in addition to opening several of the largest car dealerships in the area. according to "the daily beast" it's the 36th seat democrats

have flipped since trump's inauguration. lot of people reading the signs on that one. >> president trump's controversial pick to run the 2020 census has withdrawn his name from consideration after months of democratic pushback. trump tapped thomas burrell a university of texas dallas professor to helm back in november. he faced criticism for having little to no experience outside of academia and his long history of testifying in defense of republican redrawing of voting maps, putting him directly at odds with the nonpartisan task of counting u.s. residents. his poimts raised fears among civil rights advocates that the 2020 census would not count minority communities accurately and the results would be used politically to bolster federal funding and gerrymandering efforts. the census bureau will continue the 2020 preparations with no leadership, a slashed budget and new i.t. system the government accountability office has deemed high risk. the bureau director resigned last may. coming up next on "morning

joe," the troubles facing the white house as the fbi director contradicts administration officials on who knew what and when about rob porter's abuse allegations. >> senator chris coons discusses his plans on immigration and republican senator james langford will weigh in and goldman sachs ceo lloyd blankfein joins us the conversation. "morning joe" is moments away. 40 million americans are waking up to a gillette shave. and at our factory in boston, more than a thousand workers are starting their day building on over a hundred years of heritage, craftsmanship and innovation. today we're bringing you america's number one shave at lower prices every day. putting money back in the pockets of millions of americans. as one of those workers, i'm proud to bring you gillette quality for less, because nobody can beat the men and women of gillette. gillette - the best a man can get.

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welcome back. before we toss it over to "morning joe" let's get a check of the stories you will be hearing about in the day hey head. >> president trump set to welcome a group of bipartisan lawmakers to discuss the country's infrastructure. the president is expected to focus on steps to take a fixing to the aging roads and bridges. it comes after he unveiled his ten-year infrastructure plan on monday. lawmakers in the house will kick off hearings on president trump's 2019 budget this morning. white house budget director mick mulvaney will testify before the house budget committee on the plan which looks to boost defense funding while cutting money for domestic programs. and first lady melania trump

set to spend valentine's day bringing smiles to a group of hospitalized children. mrs. trump will travel to the national institute of health in maryland. she will spend part of her day decorating cookies and making valentine's and exchanging them with children that are patients at the facility. happy valentine's day. >> happy valentine's day. >> lot of love on this show. >> love it. >> "morning joe" starts right now. we're simply stating that we're giving you the best information that we're going to have. obviously the press team is not going to be as read as other elements at a given moment on a variety of topics, but we relay the best and most accurate information that we have. well, sarah sanders said the case on rob porter was ongoing. >> ongoing. they're still studying stuff. it's such a complex matter. >> the fbi says it was closed. >> a lawyer, i have to tell you -- >> the fbi said it was closed.

>> closed? hold on. >> can you hold on a second. >> yeah. >> stay with me. >> figure this out because sarah huckabee sanders lectured the press not so long ago about spreading intentional lies. you're telling me. >> yeah. >> she said the case was ongoing. >> yeah. but the fbi says it's closed. stay with mepp i know you're a dumb country lawyer. >> i'm just a dumb country lawyer but that would be an intentional lie. i don't understand. >> sarah sanders would never do that. >> that's what i'm sitting here thinking why would they do that. >> for a living. raj shaw said the situation could have been handled better. >> he was right. >> john kelly says it was done right. >> he was wrong. >> yeah. >> sanders now blames the white house personnel security office. >> hold on. hold on. i am so confused because she blamed the press first of all, they blame the press first of all. >> it's all our fault. >> then they blame the fbi. they s