talk politics? >> no. i will leave that up to you. >> thank you, thank you so much. >> thank you. thank you? and you can get thats are pea by the way for her dressing on today.com, and your mac and cheese is there. maybe we can parlay that into something. and andrea mitchell is standing by. >> i want that recipe. thank you, ms. melvin. and congratulation mos the entire melvin family. and now, andrea mitchell, you have mail. ivanka trump was using a personal e-mail account for white house business and calling for an investigation. irony award. >> and unless hillary is indicted and which she should be, and she lied like a dog on the e-mails and she should be imprisoned. >> and crooked hillary's e-mails. >> biggest scandal since watergate. >> and how can she manage this country when she can'ting in the

e-mail e-mails. >> and under fire, the president reportedly considering the first v visit to the u.s. troops in a combat zone after failing to visit a world war i cemetery in france or going to the arlington on veterans day, and attacking the heroic commander of the bin laden raid and angering one of the s.e.a.l.s. >> something like this is not about the democrats or the republicans, and the admiral is one of the reasons that we got it, and the president obama approved it and that is as simple as it gets. and mystery illness, and the first harrowing account of the baffling syndrome striking american diplomats a broad and from one of the mothers of the victims. >> i do not believe that our military or diplomats are around the world or here at home are safe, because this, this weapon system is krcreating havoc. >> do you worry that this could

happen to other diplomats in other countries? >> that is why i am here. ♪ >> good day, everyone. i'm andrea mitchell in new york, and president trump and his daughter eivanka are letting he lawyers doing the talking after a washington post report that ivanka trump used her personal e-mail after taking the job which is a violation of the communications act in which all communications have to be preserved. and the team says that she had previousesly used the personal e-mails before she was briefed and she did not have a private server at her home when hillary clinton did as secretary of state. and of course, donald trump seized on the e-mails as a defining issue of the campaign and leading to chants of "lock her up" at the trump rallies that continue to this day. and joining me is peter

alexander, and "usa today" contributor susan page, and nbc's katy tur here in new york. and what is the white house saying today, peter? >> this is the defenof the whit pushing back from the allegations that ivanka trump sending hundreds of e-mails in the first months where she served as the president's top advisers and before she officially came to the white house, the officials to the cabinet officials and white house aides and the assistants as well. they are trying to draw some differences between what she did and what hillary clinton did, but certainly some striking parallels between the two, and both of them did use personal e-mail and both of them retained attorneys to determine which e-mails should be retained and beyond that, perhaps as significantly as anything both of them pleaded ignorance when asked if they understood the ramifications of the circumstances of potential consequences surrounding the

move here. and ivanka trump is at the white house today and we will likely see her in an hour from now when she is at the official turkey pardon and unlikely to take the questions there, and she has not spoken publicly about that, and leaving the questions to be answered by her outside attorney. >> and of course, this is a big issue of the campaign and nobody knows the campaign better than katy tur who was there every step of the way. and katy, we saw mitt the midterms with the crowds responding with "lock her up." >> and they still say it, and whenever donald trump starts to mention her name they chantb that "lock her up." >> and this is over the e-mail. >> yes, the government e-mail for private business and to explain that she didn't know any better is hard to believe for ivanka because she was campaigning al longside her fathera and there is not a circumstance that somebody in the family didn't know that using a private service for

government business was not okay, and never the country knew it was not okay, and everybody with a pulse knew it was not okay, but the issue here is know knows bt the administration and the cabinet of the administrations has felt that they are above the law or that the rules don't matter to the them. you can go through a long list of thing, and you can talk about the violations of the emollients clause, and donald trump not relees releasing the taxes or die vesting from business and kellyanne conway hawking fashion line, and visits to mar-a-lago and he goes to golf courses more than anybody else and even after he complained that obama golfed too much, and pruitt and zinke and others using the taxpayer

money for their own personal businesses, and feeling as if the government works for them, and that they don't work for the american people. feeling as if the rules don't apply, and if they don't, if they do it, it does not matter. and while at the same time criticizing everybody else in government for doing exactly the same sort of thing. >> and this creates a obvious parallels to what hillary clinton went through, and susan page, having covered all of this for so long and seeing the impact on clinton. she got defensive and she did not explain it right away and it trailed her throughout the campaign and of course, donald trump seized on it. it ended up wounding her profoundly with james comey reopening the e-mail investigation, and all of that history which damaged her ability to campaign for herself. >> it is inexplicable, and her explanati explanations did not make sense and things dribld out how the

e-mail system worked and she said no classified information on it, and it turns out that under scrutiny, some of them did -- >> and let me interrupt that it is things that that were retroactively classified and now aren't, and so that can be the same for ivanka trump that things that are not classified can soon be. >> and with the scrutiny that is what the secretary clinton found and what with ivanka trump going to be finding, because one thing that is different from the past two years is that democrats are about to get the power in the house to launch investigation, and to hold hearings and subpoena the documents and of the long list of controversies that katy ticked through many of them are subject to investigations by the democratic house committees starting in january. >> and you all stand by for a moernlgts and preside moment, because president trump is facing criticism for his treatment of troops in the

combat zones. and by comparison, president obama was visiting troops in if the first two months of iraq, and president bush spent the first thanksgiving with troops in baghdad, and now, a former white house official says that he has not been interested in going, and he is afraid of those people, and afraid that people want to kill him. and that is obviously an issue for the secret service to determine, and bring back the panel, and the military expert and msnbc expert colonel jack jacobs and recipient of the medal of honor. and what is your thoughts on this? >> well, it is disconcerting to the troops and the rank a and file, and other presidents have visited, and the president persist ps in castigating the

military leadership both in his command and the chain of command. everybody goes to visit the troops with wherever they are, and as the number of troops who are deployed continues to increase, it becomes imperative that the chain in command show its face especially in an environment in which we don't, we don't have very much visibility of what is going on. so it is not very good -- i would not say it directly destroys morale, but it is not good at holding it up, and if you are the commander in chief, you have to be able to demonstrate that you are in control of the situation, and being close to the action is one of those things that makes that so. >> pete, peter alex sander, do u think that he is going to be going perhaps over the thanksgiving holiday or some time soon, because he did acknowledge the chris wallace on fox news sunday and in fact, let

me play it to you, because it is one of the few times that the president acknowledged that he made a mistake. let's watch. >> and you are back in washington on monday. veterans day. and why don't you go across the river to arlington for that ceremony, and barack obama went every year he was here in d.c. >> i should have done that. i was extremely busy on calls for the country, and we did a lot of calling as you know, and in retrospect, i should have, and i did last year, and i will virtually every year. >> so, peter, what do you think? >> le well to, be clear, right now, there is no guidance that the president is making a trip to iraq or afghanistan and you heard in that sound bite with chris wallace on fox news he was very busy attending to the responsibilities as president and making a lot of calls, and we have not received information that any of the calls on the veterans day weekend went to veterans or service members overseas which is another note,

and the reason that this is a problem for the president optically is that this is a president who casts himself as a champion for the military community and i traveled him with and katy has in the campaign and i have in the course of the presidency, and lot of veteran, and members of the military families who attend the rallies and believe in this president, and the idea that he has not gone is not going to be sitting well with any of them certainly, and we have heard from the veterans group saying that this is disappointing and the president they note can bring attention to the wars even if they are wars he casts as failures and trying to separate himself from, and they are nonetheless at least in afghanistan a forgotten war, and on top of that, perhaps as significantly that we have heard nothing from the white house, and specifically about what nbc news first reported a couple of weeks ago this technical glitch described by the department of veterans affairs that has impacted more than 82,000 of the -- recipients of the g.i.

bill they have not received the benefits for housing and other benefit, and so he needs to be look looking out for that community more broadly. >> the counter argument is dan crenshaw, the spokesman said that he has been very good on the military benefits and despite the g.i. glitch. >> what peter and i have experienced is yeah some disap poi disappoint ment and the desire for him to show more of the symbolic, and have more of the symbolic gestures towards the military to make calls and show up and visit the gravesites and do the things that commander in chief does symbolically, and a lot of them give him a pass for that, because they say, hey, listen, he is expanding the benefits of the v.a. and it is not his fault that they can't get it together and give him a

pass. he has spent more money on the military and the defense and they are raising the pay wage, and he is raising the pay wage, and when donald trump will see a picture of say george w. bush in iraq serving the thanksgiving to so soldiers out there, and he would have said, we should not have been in iraq, and we should not have sent our soldiers out there to be slaughtered or to fight this war, and someone else's war, and he will argue that he was against the iraq war even though there is no evidence of him being against it. and the military supporters and those who want to support him and like him will say that he is not the one who got us into the mess, and i don't need him to try to make it better by carving up a turkey for me. >> and of course, we should point out also that it is thanksgiving this week, and my favorite holiday, but it is not a great holiday for all of the troops 5,200 at the border, susan page, on what was clear l a feckless mission, because some

of them may be brought back and not in time for them to be with the families this thursday. >> well, it is disappointing for the families, but one other point on the president, and the tradition of the president visiting troops in combat, and it is not just to show support for the troops and the morale, but it is also because the presidents learn things when they visit the front lines and gives them a chance to talk to people other than the advisers around them in the white house, chansd to talk to the commanders there, and to talk to the troops. the presidents learn things in vietnam, and afghanistan and iraq when they visited there, and that is another reason that to some it is disappointing that president trump has not done that. >> indeed. well, thank you all so much, and i know that all of us have been with the presidents in various times in combat zones in the troops and we should be thinking of them in the whole holiday season. and coming up, schumer showdown and why is the top democrat calling for an investigation into acting attorney general matt whitaker? stay with us on "andrea mitchell reports" only on msnbc.

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senate democratic leader chuck schumer is asking the inspector general of the justice department to ask if attorney general matt whitaker communicated about the probe about wh he is communicating with mr. whitaker in the role confidential grand jury or other investigative information from

the mueller investigation or any inf information. and joining me is mimi rocah from the southern district of new york, and clint watts former fbi agent. and is this letter based on communications or politics or something in between maybe? >> well, it is hard to know. i don't think that senator schumer would put that out there, and i mean, it is, look, a lot of criticisms of whitaker being appoint and, i think that all evidence is pointing to the fact that he was appointed to slowdown the mueller investigation and despite trump's lies in the interview, because that is what is going on, because he claims that he did not know the views on the mueller investigation, and that is simply fly ing ing in the fa reality, and no one has said that whitaker has been or might already be sharing information

with trump. and so, i think that for shumer to say this, there must be some indications and none that we have publicly know, but it harkens back to i think that some of the, you know w what happened with nixon and where he tried to pressure people the department of justice to give him information about the investigation. >> and that would be highly improper. >> and a lot of help from john mitchell who happened to be the attorney general and ended up spending hard time. and clint, "axios" is praising his courage, and not in a hurry to find the replacement, and they anticipate a problem with the confirmation etch from the republican-dominated senate as it is, but that whitaker would be a hard sell to any committee given the lack of experience and what he has said in the past, and writing challenging "marbury versus madison" and the

foundational supreme court decision. that said, he could be there for 10 months as acting. >> yes, and that is the strategy. to put him in there as a delaying mechanism, and if you are looking at the strategy, it has either been try it in public or delay. that is kind of the trump stance in terms of the mueller investigation, and the other part that is interesting with whitaker is that i can find no other reason why he would be appointed in the decision, and to put him forward is when sessions was becoming the attorney general, he had a clear mandate of what he believe edd and what he wanted to advance for the department of justice, and i have no idea what matt whitaker would do for the department of justice and a lot of people in d.c. who want to be the attorney general, and for them as well watching this person being on television bashing the mueller investigation and sitting in the top chair for seven to eight months for basically one reason. so as we are looking at this, this is a delaying strategy and what i am curious about and what

we are talking about in different contexts is this has showed down the mueller investigation already -- >> and how would we know? >> we would not. how would it play out, subpoenas issued or people trying to find out who is in command at the department of skwus tis and it is not entirely clear to the employees or the people in the administration how it folded and it is probably rod rosenstein, and the former director mueller and matt whitaker who know how it is going. >> and one would presume if something untorrid happened that rosenstein would know about it, and what would propel him to go forward and mimi and clint, what is the reading of the indictment? is this a thanksgiving eve announcement from the special counsel's offices or next week more likely or not at all? >> well, to me, the clearest sign that we have had so far and it is a little bit of reading the tea leaves with mueller about the timing is that letter they filed in paul manafort's case who is a judge that you can't say, ah, we need another

30 days and no explanation why and this judge wants the answer, and they said clearly that in ten days, judge, we will give you a bert idea of what is going on in this case. >> and when did that get phi fi -- filed? >> well, that ten days is monday, so that is why people think that it is going to break monday, on or before, and so that is when they have to give the judge answers, and it is not a judge to let them sort of slide by with generalities about with why they aare postponing te manafort sentencing. >> and what about mike flynn? >> that angle is dope, and s --t angle is done, and we won't see anything more that we with don't know in terms of that investigation, and it shows that angle of the investigation has played itself out. and what everybody is looking for right now is what is the relationship between stone and potentially wikileaks and some

of the outlets disclosing -- >> the russian connection. >> and this is where it is going to play to now, and that is the manafort portion of it that we will see coming out next week. >> we will all be staying closely in touch with this. clint and mimi, happy holidays to you, and thank you for being with us. coming up, mississippi blues. can the democrats break a 30-year lock and win a senate seat in the state's upcoming runoff? this is "andrea mitchell reports" only on msnbc. ♪ ♪ applebee's bigger bolder grill combos are back. now that's eatin good in the neighborhood.

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who are you going to vote for on tuesday? >> oh, who else but espy. >> will he be able to win? >> we hope so. >> cindy hyde smith. why? >> because she is a conservative republican. >> do you think that smith hyde wins tuesday. >> tuesday. >> the runoff. and you are votinging for? >> mike espy. >> and what makes tuesday voting different than in elections in the past? >> we need a change. >> and vaughan hillyard with the mississippi voters with who are sounding off before a closely

watched election and to determine the pow ore of balance in the senate. we know that the republicans will retain the majority but how much. and the democrats are sending in the political heavyweights in hopes of ousting cindy hyde smith who has grabbed head loli with racially-charged remarks, but mike espy who is a former agriculture secretary in the clinton white house is facing a bid as becoming the first african-american to represent mississippi in the senate since the reconstruction and more than three decades. joining us is vaughan hillyard where the two candidateses are going to be debating tonight. and vaughan, tell me about the walmart dispute, because it is coming up a as late-breaking story in the race. >> yeah, andrea. walmart announced that it is asking for a refund of the yes, it is $2,000, but it is a donation that the company had made to cindy hyde smith's campaign, but they changed the course this morning putting out on twitter saying that they

would like the campaign to return the donation in light of the comments that you were mentioning, and video clips appearing over the last week including one where cindy hyde smith was joking to a supporter that she would sit in the front row for public hanging, and to say that out of this race, tuesday night, the campaign, and tonight's debate is going to be consequential, and neither candidate has debated before, and this is hyde smith's opportunity to respond to the videos, and because when you go around mississippi like we have in the last 24 hours and also in phone calls that we have placed to different mississippi voters over the course of the year, and it is those tapes and those comme comments of cindy hyde smith's that are on the forefront of minds. we have talked to one-third of the electorate here which is black voters, and they say in conversation with the friends and family, they are more galvanized to show up in light

of the comments. but andrea, there are 146,000 voters that we will be paying particular attention to e over the next seven day, and back over november 6th, there were three main democrats in the race are. and chris mcdaniel who got one-third of the vote, and now he is out of the race, but he was further right and more conservative candidate and so the question is if his voters are going to be showing up to the polls next tuesday or sit home, and an increase of the democratic turnout. so as we are looking at this, and in talking, i got off of the phone last night with david mcgee, and he is one of the chris mcdaniel voters and he was mulling the exact option and saying that ess sen sha sential in his mind to vote for espy and have a new republican election in two years or go with hyde smith and even though he is frustrate and does not believe

that she is a true conservative and so suddenly a lot of dynamics in the race, and over the next seven days what we will be paying attention to is what if more of them were moderate republicans or republicans that who found cindy hyde-smith's comments so offensive. so we can't make the correlation between alabama and here in mississippi in 2018, but it is a similar dynamics. >> and walmart's $2,000 symbolic, but it was done because of a tweet from debra me messing who tweeted to walmart about their concern abs it. and another thing that we have to leave it here is that some people are suggesting that cindy hyde smith made those comments not as an accident, but deliberately to reach out to mcdaniel vote which could put her over the top in the head-to-head race, a and we will be tracking that in the next week, and you will be down there, vaughan. thank you. and coming up, running man?

joe biden is dropping more hints about what he is dropping hints about in his decision to run in 2016. stay with us. 2019. 2019. this food truck is our baby. and like any baby, it's loud, stressful and draining. and we love it. i refuse to let migraine keep me from saying... "i am here." aimovig, a preventive treatment for migraine in adults, reduces the number of monthly migraine days. for some, that number can be cut in half or more. the most common side effects are pain, redness or swelling at the injection site and constipation. talk to your doctor about aimovig. and be there more. new sleep number 360 smart bed. it senses your movement and automatically adjusts to keep you both effortlessly comfortable. this week only, save 50% on the new sleep number 360 limited edition smart bed. ends cyber monday.

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trying to figure out 2020 with almost two dozen candidates vying for attention, but many of them are waiting to see whether joe biden who turns 76 today puts his toe in the water. in a new afterward to the 2017 memoir obtained by msnbc news, biden is offering a window into the family's grieving process after the death of their son bo and the impact of what it could have on his decision to run in 2020. joining me is national reporter mike and sam stein, who is the politics editor for daily beast, and both of them covering joe biden for so long and know him so well. first to you, mike mimily, as to the decision of whether to run or not to run, and i want to play a little bit of our friend craig melvin introducing jill and joe biden in september on "today" show and look at the way that dr. jill biden answered the question. >> dr. biden, say hypothetically come january, this follow

sitting next to you is coming to you, and he has been crisscrossing across the country campaigning for people, and anybody who knows him recently knows that he has the fire in the blly. and he comes to you in january and he says, sweetie, i want to be president of the united states again, and what would you say? >> i would say, joe, you would make a great president, but let's think about it. >> that is an endorsement. >> and to me, that is a tell. you have spent a lot of time with the bidens. >> yes, andrea. joe biden is one of the two or three democrats for whom a lot of other decisions about 2020 depends on and we know that his decision depends a lot on what the family thinks, and are they ready to go through the national campaign so soon after the death of the eldest son bo biden and i agree as one democratic strategist said to me that a lot of people are overlooking the jill biden factor, but there is insight as to how the family is

coping through the new book. the vice president talks about how fulfilled he has been in his post vice presidential life and all of the different initiatives that he has launched, but he says that the family is getting better and stronger everyday. he talks about how the book tour that he underwent a year ago when you interviewed him as the book tour was beginning has been surprisingly cathartic for him and opportunity for him to process the grief over his son in public. it is his birthday and he is headed to nantucket as his family does every thanksgiving, and we know that the month ahead is going to be the time when they sit down to make a decision about wa what he is going to do. >> and sam stein n the book, he describes it as cathartic, the book tour that he says as hard as the book tour was in the beginning and hard to talk about the loss of beau without losing my composure, and the current state of domestic politics, and the international relations when i wanted to talk about beau and all of the fine things that he

represented, it was surprisingly cathartic and i felt like i was doing something worth doing, and having a purpose to fulfill my promise to the son. that is pointing to a decision to run. >> yeah, joe biden, and you know this better than anyone, andrea, is fulfilled by interactions with the voters. and he is more comfortable out among the people and rather than behind the scene, and this is why he has done it before, and explains why the tv presence and the personality, and explains the fact that he can go virtually anywhere in the country and calm pain for people which is not something that any other democrat in the current day and age can do. joe biden can go down to alabama, and he can go into the industrial midwest and into cities, and he can give a pitch that is unifying for the democratic voters, and so it is cathartic for him, and he is good at it, and the question facing him is does he have the

type of resume makeup that fits the modern democratic party, and keep in mind that the career is decades' old, and some marks from the past na will be problematic in the present and the chief among them the anita hill hearings and the crime bill. and he has to grapple that the record is antiquated for the modern democratic party and even if it is a good sell as a surrogate and campaigner currently. >> sam stein and mike mimoly on the biden watch as are so many candidates. and the under attack, the mystery health attack for d diplomats in cue band china and the exclusive conversation with the mother of one of the dip e diplomats next. only on "andrea mitchell reports" on msnbc. n "andrea mil reports" on msnbc. - a potentially serious bacterial lung disease that can disrupt your life for weeks. in severe cases, pneumococcal pneumonia can put you in the hospital.

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but he has plans today.ain. hey dad. so he took aleve. if he'd taken tylenol, he'd be stopping for more pills right now. only aleve has the strength to stop tough pain for up to 12 hours with just one pill. aleve. all day strong. and we have breaking news from the white house. president trump has released a statement on the death of journalist jamal khashoggi coming down on the side of saudi arabia writing that sing salman and crown prince mohammad bin salman vigorously deny the knowledge of the planning or execution of the murder of mr. khashoggi. our intelligence agencies are

continuing to assess the situation. but it could very well be that the crown prince had knowledge of this tragic event -- maybe he did and maybe he didn't. that being said, we may never know all of the facts surrounding the murder of mr. jamal khashoggi. in any case, our relationship is with the kingdom of saudi arabia. >> and so it is confirm and the aba bun dan abundance is that he was involved and that it could not have happened without the crown prince's order and knowledge. and so once again, the president is coming down against the best advice of the intelligence community. >> yeah, at first blush, andrea, this statement seems that way. and in fact, it seems really odd when he says that maybe he did

and maub he didn't. the odd point to me here is that our relationship with saudi arabia has always had more than one touchpoint and that is that we always could deal with the family and with a king who was in charge of the family, and this is a very unusual situation where president trump had put all of the eggs in this one basket and that is the survival of this particular one crown prince. i think that it is a mistake in this case, because it could lead to a very fragile situation over time in saudi arabia. it is time to stand back and examine the whole relationship with them. this statement of his, and i have just read it at this moment could be interpreted many different ways, when he says that our relationship is always with saudi arabia, and it leaves open the possibility that it does not have to be with

mohammad bin salman, although, it also leaves open the possibility that he is going to stand with him no matter with what. so i think that this, we will have to watch this and see where it goes. it may be, too, sometimes presidents disregard intelligence advice, because they are looking at other vectors that are influencing their decision about a strategic relationship, and countless examples of that. in this case, the intelligence position seems to be very strong, and i would think that the congress will want to the hear it again after their briefing last thursday. >> this is something that we will be tracking very, very closely, closely, and standby, john, because i have a story that gets right into some of your expertise, and i want to ask you about it on the other side. this is the nbc news exclusive an international mystery that has left diplomats with unexplained brain injuries for what the government has called targeted health attacks from

unknown sources. today, 16 embassy diplomats and one diplomat from china is confirmed by the government to have suffered from this syndrome. for the first time today we are hearing from the mother of one of the injured diplomat who fell victim to the syndrome in this exclusive msnbc report. >> reporter: last summer, a d diplomat in china said that she was experiencing strange sounds and sensations in the apartment and her health was declining rap rapidly. >> her mother who is an air force veteran herself, was so alarmed that she quickly booked a flight to china. >> you know when there is something wrong with the children and so i knew that there was something wrong with catherine. >> they tried to buy imported food and putting in filters and then laura says she started to feel it, too. >> we heard a high-pitched sound in her bedroom and a low pulsing

sound in the living rooms. and our heads would pulse and you felt like you would wanted to regurgitate and you became paralyzed andpearlized. instantaneously fatigued. >> she developed eye problems. it's similar to what u.s. diplomats in cuba were feeling. as mother and daughter struggled, laura says their dogs also began acting strangely. >> they'd be shivering under the bed when we returned. they would vomit blood. they didn't want to go back into the apartment. they are rub down the hallway and stop just where the living room begins and just sit there and their heads would move simultaneously. we were so scared. we didn't know what could they possibly be looking at.

>> reporter: after three months, laura, unable to tolerate it, headed back to the u.s. three weeks later the state department medevaced catherine out of china. >> they diagnosed her with traumatic brain injury. >> reporter: many havana diplomats were affected. >> there are things identified in their mris as showing traumatic brain injury. that shouldn't be there. >> reporter: the state department brought in outside experts. their findings, brain network disorder. who or what caused it, a mystery. >> the united states government is still not sure who or what is responsible for those health attacks. >> reporter: leaving laura hughes and so many others in the dark. >> i too have been diagnosed by the same hospitals at the va hospital in philadelphia with

dramatic brain injury. >> in total, 15 evacuated after reporting sounds and systems. other than catherine, the u.s. says none of them are considered confirmed cases. some people have suggested it's psycho so matic, mass hysteria. >> scientists doesn't lie. the specialists have been working very hard. there is no way you can fake this. >> reporter: have they told you or catherine whether it is permanent damage? >> yes, it looks like it. >> reporter: laura is calling on the state department to do more. >> i do not believe our military, our diplomats, are safe because this weapons system is creating haven. >> reporter: do you worry this

could happen to other diplomats? >> that's why i'm here. >> reporter: hughes is speaking out, she says, because her daughter and other diplomats cannot. many fear the government is downplaying what happened. quick and decisive action after confirming their case in china and is providing the employees with the best medical care. the former acting cia director still with me. yon, this strikes me, and i've been working on this for more than a year with cuba and china in this case. something is going on here. it is something unknown. dozens of doctors in three cities have looked at these people. we're talking about some kind of new experimental weapon. >> that's right, andrea. >> you've got experience with what happened in our embassy. >> this is someone testing some kind of new weapon, perhaps a

sonic-based weapon. in moscow during the '60s, '70s, they bombarded our embassy. it wasn't determined whether they were trying to jam our devices or affect the health of employees but people came away feeling they'd been damaged. three died from cancer. can't prove it's associated with this. and a very good friend of mine, probably the leading russian analyst at the cia, passed away of cancer and always attributed it to this time in moscow. eventually the soviets stopped in '79. you can find other examples during the cold war in particular when the countries tested systems in ways that dealt these kinds of results. who knows who this could be.

could be china, russia, iran, could be north korea, but something is going on like that. >> john, thank you. we'll be right back. ♪ ♪ i'm all for my neighborhood. i'm all for backing the community that's made me who i am. i'm all for my theatre, my barbershop and my friends. because the community doesn't just have small businesses, it is small businesses. and that's why american express founded small business saturday. so, this year let's all get up, get out

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before we go, don't eat your vegetables. two turkeys have been vying for

that pardon. don't worry about these birds. both will be saved and sent to live out their lives in virginia. this annual tradition makes us think of another white house turkey moment. >> why are there two turkeys? >> customarily the press secretary decides -- >> no. >> which of them are the most photogenic. >> their names -- >> i don't want to know. >> this is eric, this is troy. >> eric and troy? >> yes. >> i'm to choose the more photogenic? >> yes. >> i have a masters degree from the university of california berkeley. >> good school. >> yeah. >> what can i say? that does it for us. join katy tur and me for a

conversation at the y. remember, follow the show online, on facebook, on twitter, @andreamitchell reports. >> andrea, thank you. good morning, everyone. i'm ali velshi. stephanie's off. it's tuesday november 20th. let's get smarter. as of now if you invested any of your money, that money is gone. >> we know that's the reality of it. and you've got roughly a month left so we'll see how the year ends. >> first daughter has some explaining to do after reportedly sending hundreds of e-mails about government business using a personal e-mail account. here's a questio