>> seth meyers gets tonight's last word. "the 11th hour" with brian williams starts now. tonight, as an angry president makes bizarre new accusations about voter fraud and people wearing disguises to the polls and what's required to buy groceries in america, the first lady appears to have hit her target as a white house national security official is taken out. plus, the increasingly isolated president prompts warnings the u.s. is surrendering its critical role of global broker as other world leaders step up. and class photo day for incoming members of congress as the size of the blue wave becomes now more clear. the parties pick their leadership teams for the perilous two years ahead. as "the 11th hour" gets under way on a wednesday night. well, good evening once again from our nbc news headquarters here in new york. day 664 of this trump

administration, and there continues to be this avalanche of reports about the president's personal anger and bitterness. following the midterms, a bad trip overseas, reports of new upheaval in the west wing. tonight the deputy national security adviser mira ricardel, who is said to have repeatedly clashed with the first lady's east wing staff, is out of the west wing. officially, she's being reassigned. according to the white house, "mira ricardel will continue to support the president as she departs the white house to transition to a new role within the administration." that new role was not announced. as for the other administration official said to be on her way out tonight, homeland security secretary kirstjen nielsen is still on the job. there was a nielsen sighting today. she was alongside secretary of defense mattis visiting troops at the u.s.-mexico border today, guarding against that caravan. while all that was going on, the president was talking to the

daily caller. asked about nielsen's future as a member of his cabinet, he said, "i'm looking at things. i haven't made a decision yet. i'll be making a decision on homeland shortly. i will be making changes on various things. trump also spoke to the conservative website about his frustration over the democrats' flipping the house and the ongoing florida recount. and we quote again. "the republicans don't win and that's because of potentially illegal votes. when people get in line that have absolutely no right to vote and they go around in circles. sometimes they go it their car, put on a different hat, put on a different shirt, come in and vote again." he went on to say, "if you buy a box of cereal, you have a voter i.d. they try to shame everybody by calling them racist or calling them something, anything they can think of, when you say you want voter i.d. but voter i.d. is a very important thing." now, if you don't recall having to produce i.d. to buy

groceries, you weren't alone. and if you're not familiar with people wearing disguises to your local polling place, you're not alone either. soon after those comments were posted, white house reporters asked the president for facts to support his assertions. >> mr. president, you just said that people used disguises to cast illegal votes? do you have any evidence of voter fraud like that? do you have any evidence of voter fraud? why make that false claim without evidence? >> still no answer to the cereal question. meanwhile, this man, the mueller investigation, moving ahead on a number of fronts. mueller's team appears to be focusing on whether long-time trump adviser roger stone had contact with wikileaks and knew ahead of time about the release of those stolen democratic e-mails during the campaign. the "wall street journal" reporting that the special counsel's office is now looking into possible witness intimidation by stone and his former friend randy krcredico.

stone has claimed this man, credico, was a back channel to wikileaks. credico denies that. and nbc news has exclusively obtained text messages from october 2016 between stone and credico in which they discuss wikileaks just six days before the release of john podesta's e-mails. stone, who has already said he expects to be indicted, was on laura ingraham's radio show earlier today. >> there is no evidence whatsoever of russian collusion or wikileaks collaboration or any proof or evidence that i knew in advance the source or the content of allegedly stolen or allegedly hacked e-mails published by wikileaks. i never discussed john podesta's e-mails in my tweets. the allegation that i somehow knew in advance about the theft of his e-mails is patently untrue. >> mueller's team is also continuing to get information from former trump deputy

campaign manager rick gates. in court today prosecutors said they were not ready to sentence gates because he is continuing to cooperate with ongoing investigations. and the man mueller is now reporting to, acting attorney general matt whitaker, today received a ruling from the justice department's own in-house office of legal counsel saying it looks good to them, his appointment is lawful and valid. a good many others disagree. they feel whitaker has prejudged the russia investigation and that his appointment in the first place unconstitutional. today arizona republican senator jeff flake tried to force a vote on a bill to protect mueller's job but was blocked by majority leader mitch mcconnell. flake holds the deciding vote, as you may recall, on a narrowly decided senate judiciary committee. he now says he won't vote to advance or confirm trump administration judicial nominees unless a vote to protect mueller

is held. >> well, the president has said that he's not going to move on the special counsel. but that's not enough. when you have the attorney general fired and the oversight for the investigation moved to someone who has not received senate confirmation, who has expressed open hostility to the mueller investigation, there's a problem. >> so much to talk about as we bring in our lead-off panel on a wednesday night. john heilemann, msnbc national affairs analyst. also co-author of "game change" and "double down" as well as co-host of "the circus" on showtime. phillip rucker, pulitzer prize-winning white house bureau chief for the "washington post." and mimi rocah, former assistant u.s. attorney for the southern district of new york, now a distinguished fellow in criminal justice at the pace university school of law. welcome to you all. mr. rucker, i'd like to read you a quote from your newspaper tonight. we have such a stack of issues. let's stack them back up and start at the start. "the first lady's decision to

publicly advocate for the ouster of a senior member of her husband's staff shows a new willingness on her part to weigh in on white house operations and marks a change from earlier in the trump administration when she repeatedly played down her role as adviser to the president. ricardel's dismissal also serves as a rebuke of john bolton, known for his sharp elbows and ability to navigate internal tengsz, who refused for weeks to fire his hand-picked deputy and worked in the past day to protect her." may i add that bolton is 10,000 miles away in asia on a business trip. phil, have we overplayed the hunger games aspect of this east wing/west wing drama, or do we have it about right? >> i think you have it about right, brian. it's not just a hunger games drama. she's the number two national security official in the white house. and with bolton overseas in asia she's functioning as the top national security official until today, this afternoon when we learned that she would be

leaving. look, she's rubbed a lot of people the wrong way in the west wing because she has been john bolton's enforcer. bolton is famous through past administrations for being a bureaucratic fighter, for being able to manipulate the bureaucracy and amass power inside administrations. and mira ricardel has helped him do that in the white house. but it seems like the last straw was this run-in with the first lady melania trump regarding the travel plans for her trip to africa last month. ricardel noticed as the planning was taking place that the flight manifest for the first lady's flight to africa did not include a seat for ricardel or for any other national security council official and that the national security council figures -- policy experts, rather, were told to fly commercially on their own to get to africa and to meet up with the first lady's traveling party on the ground, which she interpreted as a real

slight. and that created a lot of bad blood between her and the first lady's office. and then we saw that extraordinary statement yesterday where the first lady's office said look, we don't think she deserves the honor of serving in this white house. >> yeah, that'll probably do it. john, let's go to the next item in this with some personal news. i was at my favorite shop around 3:00 p.m. on sunday -- >> your favorite shop? >> shop rite. >> oh, shop rite. >> bought several makes of cereal. sailed through check-out. i now feel like i might have committed cereal fraud. i was not asked for nor did i produce -- >> when you say cereal fraud, are you talking about fraud related to cereal or many forms of fraud in the same place? >> many brands of cereal. >> serial fraud related to cereal. >> what do you make of the president's comments on cereal purchases and on the wearing of a disguise to the polls? >> well, i mean, look, it's comical and absurd and ridiculous and has no basis in reality. it's a surrealist kind of hyperweird -- >> it's our president. >> -- fantasy.

i know. i understand. but the president has made -- look, there are various levels of gaudiness to the absurdities of the things he says about voter fraud, but all of them are rooted in something that's fundamental. in some ways making the allegation that hillary clinton won the popular vote because there were 3 million illegal votes cast in the 2016 election is no more or less absurd than the thing about the disguises and the grocery store. it just doesn't sound as kind of comical. but they're all equally absurd and equally insidious and equally baseless. and all equally driven by the same impulse, which is to cast doubt on the validity of the system so that when the system turns against him if it does turn against him, when he loses an election, when he is standing for election, he will have laid the predicate down to say the system was rigged, somehow this was stolen from me. that is what it's all been about from the beginning in 2016 all the way through to now, is that moment he knows is coming, when he's going to lose a vote and he's going to say, well, i've

been telling you for the last three years that this whole system is rife with fraud and now he's making up increasingly kind of absurd versions of that. >> and counselor, you get us of course to roger stone. this will make maybe the 15th conversation you and i have had about roger stone. does this get us where you thought we were headed, especially this aspect that he may be affecting witnesses? >> right. so we have talked a lot about stone. i think what's new here is first of all this idea that -- not idea. the reporting that mueller is looking at stone for intimidating witnesses. because two things. one, that's an additional potential charge against stone. but it also goes to this point that we've talked about before with trump and others, consciousness of guilt. if stone, which it seems from the reporting, is trying to get witnesses to adopt his version of the truth to make their story match his, well, why? what is he hiding? he is very good at going on tv and tweeting and making videos of him saying i didn't know

anything, and he keeps changing his story, though, and every time something comes out in the reporting he discovers a new batch of texts that show that he really didn't know anything in advance. look, we can't parse all the facts because we don't have all the evidence that mueller does. but it is very clear that there are way too many coincidences here that don't add up that stone is going to have to answer for at some point i think and we'll just have to see what form that takes. >> i'll tell you one fact we can parse. roger stone lies all the time. he's been a pathological serial liar through his -- many times throughout his entire career, though. going back 40 years in politics. roger stone lies about everything. that's the one north star, home truth about roger stone. i actually am kind of tired of this story. i'm to the point where he's going to get indieted and then we're going to find out what the whole evidence tells us. but all of his assertions now are utterly worthless and completely in keeping with the fact that he lies about everything all the time. >> and one additional point on that, i think because we all say why isn't he indicted yet, it

makes me think there is more coming and it's not just going to be about his lies and it might not just be stone. right? but we think there's going to be a couple of people involved who get indicted. >> okay. so phil rucker, you get us to the effort to protect mueller. and before we talk about it, i want to play you lindsey graham on this subject tonight on fox news. >> this is a manufactured problem. president trump is not going to fire mueller. mueller's going to be allowed to do his job. and we need conservative judges on the bench, as many as we can, as often as we can get them. >> by the way, i feel duty-bound always to read this tweet from lindsey graham may 2016. "if we nominate trump, we will get destroyed, and we will deserve it." it's always kind of an evergreen that we keep in the hopper. so phil rucker, what is the takeaway value for people who are legitimately concerned?

jeff flake et al. about the protection of mueller. >> brian, they're legitimately concerned that the president could at some point act to try to restrain or get rid of mueller as the special counsel. and that's why they're putting forward this legislation. flake and a number of democrats, you know, want legislation that would create protections for the special counsel. that has been shot down by the senate majority leader mitch mcconnell today. and a number of republicans who are loyal to the president say it's not necessary because they take the president at his word. but as you saw flake say in his speech on the senate floor today, it's not enough to take this president on his word. he has removed the attorney general, jeff sessions, after more than a year of publicly complaining that the attorney general was not loyal enough to him personally to protect him and insulate him from the russia investigation. so he's clearly shown a willingness to act on personnel matters based on his sort of

personal priorities on the russia investigation. and i think that's why flake and so many democrats on capitol hill are concerned that he could be convinced or motivated to act one step further again in the future. >> let's put up the paul begala tweet from earlier today. john, this is germane. i spotted this. "you're going to need scuba gear if you're holding your breath waiting for senator collins to do the right thing." begala is a democratic operative just for factual sake. but what susan collins and flake have in common is so many democrats run to them with a warm embrace to find it's smoke, it's a mirage. and are we making the same mistake with senator flake, who has days left in the senate, by the way? >> i think the main thing they have in common, brian-s something they also have in common with lindsey graham, which is they're republican united states senators who have a bunch of ulterior motives for what they do. lindsey graham is on television saying these things because he

ultimately wants some other job, maybe attorney general, maybe another job in the administration. susan collins is afraid she's going to get primaried by a trump conservative so she votes yes on kavanaugh, she'll never do the right thing in terms of protecting bob mueller. and jeff flake in his closing days in the united states senate is clearly looking down the road at some other thing he's going to run for, perhaps running as an independent presidential candidate against donald trump. so in these last days when it doesn't really count but he wants to be remembered as having taken a stand against donald trump on principle, he will now do these things in a kind of grandstanding way. they're all transparently political in my view, of all three of them. and i hate to be cynical on this show because i know you value idealism and altruism here. but i have a small sack full of cynicism applied to all three of those characters. >> mimi, don't pay any attention. he's so cynical. mimi, the in-house office of legal counsel at the justice department says general whitaker looks good to us. what are we to think about us? >> look, it's disappointing in the sense that i think it's wrong, but it's not entirely surprising. this is the same office that

said that the first travel ban was legal and that didn't work out so well in the courts. >> aren't they career people, though? >> well, they are. although the author of it is someone who is kind of a republican -- i don't want to say operative. that's too strong of a word. but he's on the democratic -- republican side. and the point is that look, i think there are many stronger arguments that it is unconstitutional, his appointment. there are still very good arguments that it's not lawful under the statute, which was the main argument that the olc memo addressed. but the real point is it's just wrong. walter schwab has a great article that came out today where he said look at the last president who got rid of someone to impact an investigation of him was forced to resign. trump has now done this twice, with the fbi director, with the attorney general. and then he's installed someone who has said already oh, i don't

think he committed any kind of conspiracy or collusion. he's prejudged it without knowing all the facts. if that isn't a reason to get a president to resign, forget about criminal prosecution, i don't know what is. and the fact that the republicans are silent on this and that this is being allowed to happen, whether or not you can come up with some legal, technical legal argument about why it's okay, it's just not the right -- it's wrong. and there are so many other questions too about whitaker. i think this whole question with him and this company that he was a part of, if we weren't so exhausted from talking about everything else we could spend, you know, 20 minutes on that. >> i promised everybody so many topics, so little time. that'll have to bring a halt to our first segment with our thanks to phillip rucker, to mimi rocah and the cynical john heilemann. always ready to play. thank you all very much. coming up, as the house democratic majority grows, the republicans choose their management team for when they report to work as the minority. and later, a judge is about to

decide whether the white house had the right to pull a network correspondent's press pass. "the 11th hour" just getting started on a wednesday night. tet welcome to emirates mr. jones. just sit back, relax and let us entertain you... ...with over 3,500 channels of entertainment, including the latest movies and box sets from around the world. ( ♪ ) we even have live sports and news channels. ( ♪ ) and your free wi-fi will start shortly. enjoy your flight mr. jones. world's best inflight entertainment. fly emirates. fly better. world's best inflight entertainment. yeah, i've had some prettyeer. prestigious jobs over the years. news producer, executive transport manager,

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see the grinch in theaters by saying "get grinch tickets" into your xfinity x1 voice remote. a guy just dropped this off. he-he-he-he. welcome our republican senators that allowed us to continue our majority, and we'll be heading across the way here shortly to collect the leadership team for the next two years. good morning. >> are you still contending there's fraud going on in florida with the recount? >> thank you very much. >> is this picture going to be

outdated by tomorrow? >> that was florida governor rick scott on capitol hill today. he's declared himself the winner of the florida senate race, posed for photos there with the majority leader, even as the statewide recount continues tonight. incumbent senator bill nelson has filed a lawsuit to extend tomorrow's deadline. and a judge is also considering his request that thousands of provisional ballots be considered. in congress the midterm shift in power means new leadership in the house. kevin mckarthy, republican of california, will now be the top republican, replacing the outgoing speaker paul ryan. he easily defeated a dark horse challenge by trump loyalist jim jordan, the congressman from ohio. more on him in a bit. democrats won't vote on their leadership until january 3rd. nancy pelosi has remained confident she will become the new sneaker despite some behind-the-scenes moves to push her aside. according to politico, "pelosi vowed wednesday morning in no uncertain terms to vanquish her

opponents." our own first read puts it this way, and we quote, "democrats are stuck between the option of an unpopular pelosi who's problematic for many of the house freshmen who just won and the option of no real plan b." meanwhile, democrats have officially picked up three more seats in the house since we last spoke. in a late call tonight nbc news is reporting harley rouda has ousted california incumbent dana rohrabacher. and josh harder is the apparent winner in district 10 outside san jose. in new jersey andy kim has been declared the winner in the state's 3rd district, leaving just a single republican representing the state of new jersey in their delegation in washington. with us tonight for more, robert costa, national political reporter for the "washington post" and moderator of "washington week" on pbs. bob, a lot to react to there. but let's talk about house leadership on the republican side. tell the folks about the back

and forth between congressman mccarthy of california, congressman jordan of ohio, and the role donald trump is playing in all this. >> the race for the republican house leadership position was really a race between trump allies jim jordan, kevin mccarthy, who was going to be the most influential trump ally on capitol hill. it was a powerful statement tonight for leader mccarthy to become the minority leader to lead house republicans, to beat jim jordan from ohio so soundly in a leadership race. it's a statement to the whole house gop conference that mccarthy's in charge, paul ryan is heading for the exit. but jordan's still trying to be a player. wants to be ranking on the judiciary committee, to be right up there against jerry nadler of new york. but mccarthy hasn't made any promises to jim jordan. at this point nothing's guaranteed in terms of the committees. >> meanwhile, look at the incredible shrinking republican caucus from california. i was reminded tonight there are 53 seats in congress in one

state, in california. 43 now democrat. 8 republican. 2 undecided. that's unbelievable. and it's the power base of kevin mccarthy. >> when you look at the map of california, it's just like what you saw in new jersey in the midterm elections. a suburban wipeout. and for mccarthy, who comes from the conservative area in the central valley, bakersfield, california, those conservative seats are safe. but how safe? you look at orange county. a real devastating run for republicans this year. and you see california continuing to turn left and mccarthy wasn't able to stave off those defeats. >> there's an old political bromide, and there are many of these, you know them all, that midterms take out the moderates. they often leave both sides standing. s so you get the extremes, the righties and the lefties. having established that, let's talk about nancy pelosi. it is odd that the democrats have picked up all these seats,

there is now talk that pelosi should be out. the democrats in the senate lost seats. you don't hear that about chuck schumer. so what's going on in the house? >> at this point the most interesting development is martha fudge, a former chair of the congressional black caucus from ohio, which is notably also the state where tim ryan, the chief pelosi foe, is from. she has said she could be interested in a bid for speaker, picking up on some of this discontent among house democrats. but talking to pelosi allies tonight, brian, i was roaming around capitol hill at all these new member gatherings. pelosi's confident, her allies tell me she's "on fire." she believes she remains the consensus picks, that the moderates like tim ryan and others, they grumble but they don't have a plan and in politics you need a plan. look at the freedom caucus when they try to take out boehner or ryan. when you go to the floor you'd better have a plan or else that person like pelosi, she'll continue to hold the gavel.

>> this is why for good reason our money is always on the reporting of one robert costa. thank you so much for coming on the broadcast after a long day at work in that building behind you. we appreciate it. coming up, donald trump's growing isolation on the world stage on the problems it could bring. we will talk to a career diplomat about it when "the 11th hour" continues. continues.

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comments president trump made about their french president emmanuel macron on tuesday, which happened to be the third anniversary of the paris terrorist attacks. trump criticized macron's call for a european army and his recent condemnation of nationalism, saying in part, "the problem is that emmanuel suffers from a very low approval rating in france, 26%, and an unemployment rate of almost 10%. he was just trying to get on to another subject. by the way, there is no country more nationalist than france. very proud people and rightfully so. make france great again." earlier today a french government spokesman offered this response to our president. "yesterday was november 13. we were commemorating the murder of 130 of our people. so i'll reply in english. common decency would have been appropriate." this all follows trump's lonely weekend in paris during which he was reportedly in a very angry mood and half the time looked it. the trip prompted "washington

post" opinion columnist david ignatius to write in part, "trump set the nato alliance wobbling from the day he took office, raising doubts about the united states' continued readiness to pay for other countries' defense. europeans spent the year trying to make nice but they seem to have gotten the message. the united states isn't a fully reliable protector anymore." here to talk about all of it. america's changing role on the world stage. a veteran diplomat, michael mcfaul. our former u.s. ambassador to russia. ambassador, i started with a foreign correspondent earlier this week by asking the standard question. what are they saying about us over there? and to your mind what are they saying about us over there? >> i think david gets it right. in the beginning they were trying to make good to think they could court him and everybody thought flattery works with the president. but two years in they're not finding that works. so they're thinking about going their own way. and let's be clear. they've been talking about a

european army long before president trump. so that's not something new. but to say it the way they did when he was there was striking to me. the other thing that was striking to me, i traveled with president obama tom of these kind of summits over the course of my time when i worked at the white house. there was always a giant demand to get on his schedule. duke it out, who is he going to meet with. it was striking to me that nobody seemed to want to meet with president trump. he was just sitting there as you said alone. he had one major bilat. that was with president macron. >> if we are a nation alone increasingly because he is increasingly a president alone, if that follows, who wins? who benefits from that? >> first i think it's very dangerous this we're alone. i want to make that clear. the withdrawal doctrine of the trump administration pulling out of the imf treaty, pulling out of the paris peace accord. pulling oust iran nuclear deal. pulling out of the tpp, the trade deal, in asia. that makes us weaker.

and what drives me nuts about the president is he somehow thinks by pulling out makes us stronger. that's not the history of the last seven decades. by being engaged, by being a leader, that makes us stronger. but what happens in the vacuum i think in the short run it's great for putin. putin loves this. and europe, the nato allies tweeting at each other and arguing with each other. that's good for him in the short run. and the long run i think the big winner is china. >> when you look at this president on that stage, his reluctance to mark world war i, the first day of his visit. >> why go there if you're not going show up? >> apparently because of precipitation. the next day he made this appearance. but the kind of duty and honor of the american presidency that he is not going along with. >> yeah. i would say two things about that. one, his job is to advance american national interests when he engaged with other countries. and when i see trips like this, i look at the score sheet and i

say what american interest was advanced? when i look at other ones. helsinki summit. i go back to other ones. it just doesn't seem like he puts that at the top. the other thing, he's representing the united states of america. he's not there as donald trump. and i as an american, i want him to show up. i want him to show the honor to those veterans killed in action. what could be more important for us? that is his job. it's not just for him to travel and do what he wants. he's representing our country, the united states of america. >> finally, please lay bare all of your electronic communications with your former colleagues. i'm kidding. but what are your friends in the diplomatic service saying, the people that make the work go and make our embassies go and actually carry out u.s. policy on the ground? >> of course they don't like it. they need a leader that shows up and that advances their interests. right? when i was the head of the moscow embassy, we had something called deliverables.

so when a senior person comes, especially the president, you want to get tangible things done. again, continuities apparent that we got anything done from this trip to france. you know, some complain that he's not at the asia summits right now. right? he didn't go to the asean summit. obama used to show up for that all the time. he's not going to the apec summit. president xi's going to be there. right? winners and losers. he's showing up because he knows it's important. but a part of me thinks maybe it's just better if he doesn't show up because he doesn't really want to participate in that. maybe the vice president will do a better job. >> to our viewers a reminder, this is all in the ambassador's book on this topic. thank you so much. >> thanks for having me. >> always great to see you. coming up for us, a banned white house reporter gets a surprising ally in his court battle to be reinstated. that story when we come back. of investing. again. introducing fidelity stock and bond index funds with lower expense ratios than comparable vanguard funds. and we now offer the industry's first true zero expense ratio index funds directly to investors.

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we have an update on cnn's

lawsuit against the white house after the president ordered the secret service to revoke the hard pass, the press pass of white house reporter jim acosta. after hearing arguments from both sides the federal judge overseeing the suit said he will decide by 3:00 p.m. tomorrow whether to temporarily restore acosta's access. in that interview with the daily caller today president trump weighed in. "we'll see how the court rules. is it freedom of the press when somebody comes in and starts screaming questions and won't sit down? i really think that when you have guys like acosta, i think they're bad for the country." here's another reminder of the exchange that led the white house to pull acosta's pass. >> mr. president, if i may ask one other question, are you worried -- >> that's enough. >> mr. president -- >> that's enough. >> the other folks -- pardon me, ma'am, i'm -- >> mr. president. >> that's enough. >> mr. president, i had one other question if i may ask on the russia investigation. are you concerned that you may -- >> i'm not concerned about

anything with the russia investigation because it's a hoax. >> are you -- >> that's enough. put down the mike. >> mr. president, are you worried about indictments coming down in this investigation? >> mr. president -- >> i tell you what, cnn should be ashamed of itself having you working for them. you are a rude, terrible person. you shouldn't be working for cnn. >> you put it that way. let's talk about this with two of our friends, eugene robinson is back here with us. pulitzer prize-winning columnist for the "washington post." and bill kristol is back with us. a veteran of the reagan and bush administrations and editor at large of the "weekly standard." eugene, the part of that that i don't think has received enough press is the rally-like walk he takes adjacent to the podium and then comes back. he does that at his rallies during pauses. >> he does. >> and i think he was just getting his head straight. so your organization, my news organization, fox news have all joined together and submitted friend of the court briefs. what do you think should happen here?

what do you think will happen? >> well, look, the principle i think is clear. whether you like jim acosta or cnn or whether you like his style or, you know, even if you think he was rude, no president, no public official should get to decide who cnn sends to cover the white house, should get to ban a specific reporter because he doesn't like the questions, he finds them inconvenient, he finds them too pressing. that's not the way this is supposed to work. and so it doesn't surprise me that many news organizations including those that compete against cnn have jumped in with friend of the court briefs saying no, this is not acceptable, because if it happens to them it can happen to us and we can't tolerate that sort of thing. now, as to what will happen, i don't know. i don't know the legalities of this. >> bill kristol, you continue to be so much fun to follow on

twitter, whether it's press freedoms or the purchase of cereal. on this question specifically, i'd love you to weigh in on what you believe should happen in federal court. >> i'm not sure about the legal arguments one way or the other, but i do think this trend that politicians gr politicians get to choose who covers them, and the white house is different, it's the president, so they have much stronger ground for saying there has to be some procedure, presumably someone can misbehave so badly that he or she can be denied a press pass. but surely there would be a normal -- some kind of complaint, the person would have a chance to make his case. the president doesn't arbitrarily get to decide who covers him. but you know, a colleague of mine, adam rubenstein, was kicked out by steve king of his election night gathering. that's i guess technically a private gathering at a hotel room. but the general sense that people don't -- there's a general devaluation, let's say, led by the president obviously of the importance not just of a free press but a press that has access or gets a chance to really report on what's going

on. >> eugene and bill have agreed to stay with us. we're just going to call a brief pause. and we'll take a break. and we'll continue our conversation on the other side. big australia is back, and your favorites are even bigger. with the big, juicy 18oz center-cut sirloin. the ultimate great barrier combo. and the new three-cheese steak dip.

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working together with my administration over the last two years, these members have reached a bipartisan agreement. did i hear the word "bipartisan"? did i hear -- [ applause ] did i hear that word? that's a nice word. >> president trump at the white house today praising the importance of bipartisanship. the announcement signaling his support for prison reform legislation, backed by both parties, but not a single democrat was at the event.

this comes on the heels of an op-ed on bipartisanship written by senate majority leader mitch mcconnell about the democrats he wrote, "will they choose to go it alone and simply make political points or will they choose to work together and actually make a difference?" as we discussed earlier, mcconnell rejected a bipartisan effort to protect robert mueller today. and democrats over the last 24 hours have been quick to remind everyone of the name merrick garland. still with us, eugene robinson and bill kristol. eugene, how high are your hopes for bipartisanship of all things in these next two years? >> not terribly high. there are some issues on which real progress could be made. we see prison reform. it would have been nice if they'd had some democrats at the announcement. but in fact it was -- the legislation was being pushed by democrats and worked on by democrats and republicans. great thing.

sentencing reform is something that there's bipartisan support for. of course infrastructure. there are several things that could happen. but what does this president do? what is donald trump is going to be able to resist doing the one thing he does really well in politics and that's driving wedges and so i don't see him embracing democrats and singing for two years. >> bill, let's turn to congress. we heard jeff flake today. we've seen him for moderates and democrats, he has been more of a break on the power of donald trump than actual. come the new senate, are you looking to mitt romney who would have a very wide all his own to travel if he chose to be the guy, the republican that went up

against this president and white house? >> yeah, i think the bipartisanship has to come from congress, primarily. there will be a republican senate and democratic house that builds a certain incentive to work together a bit. i think mitt romney is a major figure. there are plenty of other people that can step up that have been cowed a bit or haven't seen much point in sticking their head above the rim. alexander, plenty of people who have been around the senate who are serious and should, i think, liberate themselves from the president and liberate from the extreme of their party, same with the democrats. i talked to a fair number of young players coming in, democrats and republicans obviously and i do think they are coming not simply to be rubber stamps for leaders but to try to get something done. you could have back bench reb rebellions against the partisanship of the leadership of the president. >> i have to ask a question that may reveal me as a lily livered

good government type but during the mcconnell harry reid years, it was so much about the game. it was so much about the inside game between those two guys and when i hear observers of house democrats say pelosi has it, is she the best leader for this two-year period? >> i don't know. they have an experienced person to have as leader where the republicans control the senate. i could see if i were a democrat, i would think is this time for a change to get rid of the trio if they are in their 70s and a fresh face might look better? i got to think nancy pelosi says maybe she'll serve for two years and promote younger people into leadership and i suspect she then wins the fight to be the

democrat speaker, speaker is an important job. i'm personally closer to rebels there, seth and others but i can see why if you're coming into the house now, you think maybe this, we want to make change but maybe for this one or two years, we want to keep nancy pelosi. >> eugene, rachel maddow, without taking sides did note the disparity. the democrats gained seats and what's the discussion, should we kick pelosi aside? the democrats lose seats in the senate, no one is questioning chuck schumer's leadership. >> exactly. and nancy pelosi, lord knows she knows how to count votes, she'll get things done as speaker. you know, at some point, democrats do need younger faces. younger people as the face of the party, as the future of the

party. >> there is no shortage of them. >> there is no shortage of them but who? the challenge to pelosi is coming from opposite ends of the party. there are moderates who are saying no, you know, we have to moderate, this is how we keep our majority. this is how we challenge trump. we're go g ing to get republica and independents and run. there is a strong movement to the left that's critical to pelosi for not supporting medicare for all and, you know, rearranging i.c.e. and all that. so how do you bridge that gap and i don't see a figure in the party, a younger figure, a younger rising star who bridges those two quite different ways of thinking about the future. >> bill crystal, i can offer you 15 seconds to get the final word. >> you know, i think you could have nancy pelosi as speaker and

she could give younger members a chance to spokesmen and women. there is maybe a way to have best worlds. >> to both gentlemen, as always, our thanks. one of our favorite segments. much appreciated. coming up for us, a late update on the west coast when we continue. a late update on the west coast when we continue

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last thing before we go again tonight, the hellish images out of california this evening and the word that most of the over 100 people listed at missing after the largest fire in the north called the camp fire, most of them are senior citizens. a lot of seniors lived in paradise, california, the town that was destroyed in about eight hours. this is now confirmed to be the worst and deadliest wildfire in a century. officials tonight raised the death toll on fires across the state to 59 people. the search for missing persons and for remains is both urgent and dire. families looking for loved ones are hampered by the lack of infrastructure, power lines and cell phone towers burned down in the fires. roads remain closed so getting around and getting word out is very tough. there is also the smoke. this satellite view shows those santa ana winds that blow it out

west, out and over the pacific. then the smoke gets picked up by the prevailing weather pattern, the jet stream takes it from the west to the east where as far east as chicago, it still stands out and traces of that smoke goes up and over new england and over the atlantic. s as the saying goes, it's a small world and that much smoke from a historic fire has to go somewhere. that is our broadcast on this wednesday night. thank you so much for being here with us. good night from nbc news headquarters here in new york. ws me headquarters here in new york. all right. happy to have you with us here, thanks for being with us this hour. second into last week's midterm elections, we knew to expect in the news a few different things that would probably happen right after the elections were over. first of all, we expected that particularly if the democrats did well in the midterm elections, we would start to see some democrats making public noises, some democrats having the first overt public discussions about maybe running for president in 2020. richard ojeda, an underdog

populist democratic veteran who