ndow so you're up and running in no time. show me decorating shows. this is staying connected with xfinity to make moving... simple. easy. awesome. stay connected while you move with the best wifi experience and two-hour appointment windows. click, call or visit a store today. "andrea mitchell reports" starts right now. >> right now on "andrea mitchell reports," grudge match. a bombshell report says that president trump wanted the justice department to prosecute his rivals hillary clinton and james comey, but the top white house reporters said that a move like that could lead to impeachment, and it is a threat that the president previewed in the campaign. >> it is just awfully good that someone with the temperament of donald trump is not in charge of the law in our country. >> because you would be in jail. >> siding with the saudis,

president trump backing the saudi crown prince ignoring the cia conclusion that mohammad bin salman ordered the killing of journalist jamal khashoggi. >> the cia have been studying it and they have nothing definitive and the fact is that maybe he did or maybe he didn't. >> we have a crown prince crown prince that directed the kill ing of a journalist, and of the language that was used was if they were writing it for saudi arabia and not the united states. and a movable feast. a california town putting aside their own thanksgiving plans to help the neighbors in paradise who of course lost everything to the wildfires and even the local firefighters battling the flames joining the efforts. >> turkey drive 2018, and we are really, really need your help.

this year, i won't be able to be there there. >> and happy day before thanksgiving, i'm yrnl in washington. president trump is at mar-a-lago at his resort, as an explosive report reveals that the counsel department had to stop the president from prosecuting hillary clinton and james como and don mcgahn had to issue a warning saying that such a step could be an impeachable offense. kristen welker in florida for harry litman and the former u.s. attorney and deputy assistant general, and msnbc analyst and spokesman eric miller who was the chief spokesman for previous attorney general eric holder. and so this is breaking all norms, kristen welker, a a tnd

president not unaware or concerned or determined to go after thehe rivals even though there is a fire wall between the president of the united states and the justice department and prosecutions. >> that is right, andrea, and it is going to raise real questions of how he sees his powers, and his relationship with his own justice department. i spoke with a former administration official who said, look, this should not be coming as a surprise to anyone, because this is something that president trump has signaled since he was a candidate. as you just pointed out, it is something that he has effectively signaled after he took office, and still the fact that he had these conversations is striking. now, based on that new york times report, we know that mcgahn's response to him is that, look, you could make yourself vulnerable to potential impeachment if you tried to move forward with this, but again, it underscores how the president views his powers. he has gotten criticized from the democrats and the republicans alike in the wake

with of this. we haven't had a chance to ask him any questions about it yet, andrea, because he is headed to the golf course here todays the thanksgiving vacation is underaway and he is starting the holiday on defense as he and the white house are pressed with tough questions about this, and by the way, we did reach out to white house, and we have not heard back from them with the multiple requests. and don mcgahn through the attorney did tell "the new york times" this, that he would point out that the president to his knowledge never ordered that anyone prosecute hillary clinton or james comey, but it is raising difficult questions for the president today, andrea. >> and as we say that from mcgahn is a denial, denial, denial, because he is not saying that he did not do it, but to his knowledge he did not. and do you have any doubt that robert mueller knows this already, because mcgahn has been cooperating, and this is part of the mueller investigation, and they have to decide what to do

with it. >> i am sure they knew it, and mcgahn is an open book, and for mueller and everybody at the doj as you say, andrea, it is breaking all norms. you have in the papers today, these sort of the sputtering protests from the ex-doj officials, and you almost cannot articulate how off of the chart something like this is, but the president is seeming unaware at a what is on the charts at all. this is going all of the way to the end of what you could think of as kruptive u-- corruptive ue of power and as you say, and expected jes xhur frgesture fro it has people reeling who have been jaded to date. >> and matt miller, what about matt whitaker, and what about his role in all of this in that peri period? >> it is a critical question, because i think that harry is right, if you are looking at the

reaction from the former justice department officials like harry and myself and others who are reacting today, they are outraged, because the president president is trying to do two things that are, as i think that don mcgahn rightfully said impeachable offense. with we have seen him push for the department to prosecute his political enemies and en pmys over time of him trying to intere fear at the justice department to stop or slow the investigation into himself. and now, if the president were to actually have gone forward with this order and ordered them to investigate or prosecute clinton or comey people there would have refused that order, but now we have a new justice department head whitaker who said that she should be prosecute and that flies in the face of those career pros ecutos who led that investigation, but it is questioning why he is in that job, and it is because he is hostile to the mueller

investigation publicly on television, and likely privately in the meetings with the president in the oval office and open to the idea of prosecuting hillary clinton as well. so all of the old rules of the justice department, you have to throw out of the window when you have an act aing attorney general in place who does not seem commit pod the rule officials officials -- seem committed to the rules as other justice officials. >> and we have the file that is on the hill with the omoney, marcus, he had gotten apparently that he went from what would be a normal salary for lawyer in iowa to pocketing $1.2 million over the next from a pro conservative group of perhaps he was the only real employee and undisclosed donors, and how do you factor this into it? >> it is worrisome, because it is a significant amount of money, and we don't know where it came from. and the law allows these groups

to keep the sources of their money secret. but it is a very complicated situation, and a case like this where you now have someone who is in the position of being acting attorney general, and we will see how the courts deal with that, who has an enormous amount of powers who may be, and we have financial disclosure rules and precisely to help us protect ourselves gaiagainst conflicts like this, but we don't know who the potential conflict is with. what is the interest that funded this heretofor and not terribly protected group and gave him so much money than he had gotten previously, and that is another layer of concern on top of the additional layers of concern both from the acting attorney general and the president's behavior. >> well, that must have come up in the confirmation when he was confirmed for whatever post he previously held?

>> very funny. >> sorry about that. >> that is a long, long time the ago in iowa. >> when he was the assistant u.s. attorney. kristen welker, another aspect of this is that the president's team as we have been reporting were going to do this by thanksgiving, and they have. so let's talk about what the trump, the president had to say about the trump answers to robert mueller in the written interrogation you could say, and let's play a little bit of what he had to say when he was leaving the white house yesterday. >> the written answers to the witch hunt that has bp go-- has been going on forever, and no collusion and no whatever, and finished them yesterday. the lawyers have them, and i assume they will turn them in today or soon. >> and so what do we think aboutb that? and the answers that he gave clearly not about obstruction, and that was walled off. is that enough, and when do we expect to hear from the mueller team? >> so that is the big question, andrea, will that be enough.

here is what we know. we know that they did submit the written answers of questions by special counsel robert mueller yesterday. we know that most of the answers rea late e related to questions around the russian piece of this and the potential collusion, and everything that happened before the campaign and before the president took office, because of course, the legal team was adamant that obstruction was out of bounds, out of the bounds of what robert mueller was initially charged with investigating. and so that is why you will see that focus. is that going to be enough for this special counsel? there is a real question mark sounding that, and what if it is not. and president trump in the recent interview with fox news says that he has no plans to sit down with a interview with mueller, and his legal team thinks that it is a bad idea, and if mueller wants to ask the follow-up questions or if he is not satisfied by the written responses, it would stand for reason that he is going to ask

for that, and this might come to a potential standoff and subpoena, and rudy giuliani his attorney is out publicly today saying that it is not going to be coming to that and that there is not a legal standing for subpoena battle and ultimate ly the president would prevail, but the president wanting to say that it is is close 20 being finish and he is obviously eager for this to be wrapped up, but it is not clear that mueller is close the finishing, this and that he has all of the answers that he needs, andrea. >> and to harry litman, is it possible that there is a subpoena balt or some sort of a sealed request for the subpoena or gone back and forth and there are a lot of things that we don't know about mueller, and in fact, everything that we don't know about mueller, because they have been so good about keeping it confidential, but could this already be playing out? >> so, it is very intriguing and court watchers who sort of sit and sift through the filings in

d.c. have noticed a few sealed cases from, that involved the special counsel's office. one of them intriguingly went today to the court of appeals. so it is perceived that there is a holding in the district court, and proceeded to the court of appea appeals, and it must be involve some sort of subpoena battle, because that is going to make it sealed under the rules, because it is grand jury material. is it trump? i tend not to think so, because as kristen says, this is first playing out at the level of the questions which as expected were fairly useless in their responses. of course mueller will need more and there is no substitute for eye-to-eye spontaneous questions. and the parry back from team trump and giuliani is that it is impossible for president to obstruct justice and so therefore we don't have to answer. that is the position that i don't think that it will h hold up if it goes to court, and

something is playing out in court from some grand jury witness though, and eventually probably in short order we will know what it is. >> and matt miller do you expect that we will know anything this friday or more likely that the mueller team would wait until after the holiday, and then whatever they are going to do next week is more likely? >> i think it is much more likely that it would come next week or later in the year or early next year, and close to the end stages, but there are signs that there are proceedings including this one that harry is talking about that have to play out mostly behind closed doors. but andrea, there is a thread running through all three of the stories today and the thread is really obstruction of justice. one of the biggest takeaways for me about this report of the president wanting to prosecute jim comey and he is one of the chief witnesses against the president in this obstruction of justice investigation that mueller is conducting and when you see the new revelation, and we know a lot of the acts that the president has done or allegedlied to have obstructed justice and this time's story is

to tell us potentially how much more we don't know and why he is refusing to answer the question, and why matt whitaker is in place there at the justice department. he is not answering, because if he answers truthfully, it is legally criminally, and so the way to do that is to circumvent the process and put a new acting attorney in place which the washington post says is hostile to subpoenas. and so that is another question that the acting counsel is likely to ask. >> a lot of questions raised and thank you for your best judgments on this, ruth marcus, and harry litman and chrkristen welker and all. let e's hope we take a break fr the courts. and the are response of the president to the murder of

journalist jamal khashoggi is sparking outrage and even within his own political party. you are watching "andrea mitchell reports." tylenol, he'de stopping for more pills right now. only aleve has the strength stop tough pain for up to 12 hours with just one pill. tylenol can't do that. aleve. all day strong. all day long. now introducing aleve back and muscle pain, for up to 12 hours of pain relief with just one pill.

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they are hundreds of billions of dollars of things from this country. i won't destroy the world economy and i'm not going to destroy the e kconomy for our country by being foolish with saudi arabia. and if you are look at iran and what they have done, they have been a bad actor, and look at what is happening in soar ya with say saud and hundred assa

thousands of people killed, we are with saudi arabia. >> for donald trump, human rights is apparently a matter of dollars and cents and the president is making it clear that the murder and dismemberment of a resident and washington journal reports is equal to the millions and billions that saudi arabia has at stake. >> i like the saudis, and they buy all kinds of my stuff. they pay all of my toys and pay me millions and hundreds of millions. >> and i have nothing and just so you know that i don't make deals with saudi arabia and i have no money from saudi arabia and i have nothing to do with saudi arabia and i couldn't care a less. >> well, which is it? msnbc national security analyst

served to chief of staff to leon panetta to the pentagon and the cia, and jeremy, i have to tell you that yesterday was just gob smacking. absorbing the impact of what he and mike pompeo said, it is a nasty world out there, and ignoring the intelligence community and ignoring as fred ryan of the washington post said the essential american value of human rights. >> and andrea, it is a nasty world out there, and which is all of the more reason why there is an urgent need for american leadership, and principled leadership in which we are in the world and leading with our values, and we are talking about and setting example about democracy, human rights and freedom. and so in my estimation n is a strategic mistake by the united states to veer an american foreign policy tradition grounded in values and not to the realist side of the

perspective but to mercantile side of the world, and the only thing that matters is how much you pay for the american exports, and to that theory, if iran or any other country were to say, well, we will pay a higher price, and then under that theory, if you take it to the logical extension, trump should do business with them as well. >> and first of all, fact-checking. they need us more than we need the saudis in terms of those alleged weapons deals, because they have already bought our weapons, and so now it is part of their, as you know from being chief of staff at the pentagon, that is part of the defense structur structure, and they can't go out the buy a russian plane to replace our f-18s and they have not contracted for $450 billion. they have apparently, you know, booked possible contracts for $14.5 billion which is is a small amount of that, and look at what he had to say about the oil price, and america is the biggest oil price producer,

because of the natural gas, and we are a bigger oil suppliern they that are and the oil price s are not getting lower, but they are pretty high, because we are partly producing so much, and iran despite the sanctions is still pumping out. >> and that is right, andrea. at the kocornerstone of the sau arabia relationship is a strategic bargain. it always has been, and in essence saudi arabia does a number of things in the region that are strategically important to the united states and including to help iran and including to help fight al qaeda and isis, and so in theory they stand behind the house of saud to strengthen security type, a and that can be true, but it can be true that the united states can call out an ally, and call out the partner, and say when they violate the human rights and violate democracy and the democratic principles, it is not

tolerated and not okay, and we are not agnostic if somebody orderred the murder of a american journalist in the consulate and that is not okay. and i wish that the president of the united states would make clear what the united states stands for in this world. >> speaking to that, the secretary of state was the former director of the cia and you worked for leon panetta, and you were at the cia as well, and how would the intelligence community responding to the the way that their private, you know, classified assessment briefed to congress that we have reporteded on and widely are reported as well, and how would they respond to this from mike pompeo yesterday? >> well, andrea, we are headed for the inexorable collision between the president and the cia, because when the new congress convenes the intelligence committees will be holding world wide thread

meetings in which members of both chambers can ask questions of the cia director and the director of the national intelligence and one of the fir first questions is please tell us about the assessment of the involvement of the saudi senior leaders in the death and the murder of jamal khashoggi. and there is no way for senior intelligence officials to take that assessment off line. they must be, they will have to be, and give classified version of that assessment and that going to undermine the president's narrative here, and the thing that is so disconcerting is that nds gave a report to bloomberg and hi said, i believe he left the koconsula and check the cameras. if you believe that his team lied to him, and in essence what he is saying or the saudis are claiming that the team came back to say that ka show -- jamal khashoggi got away. and it does not add up. >> and not only got away, but

one of the team members dressed up in his clothing, and paraded around the streets in his clothing as part of the ruse. and mike pompeo saying it is a mean world out there, and so if they want to call it the trump doctrine, they don't want to stand behind it, because it is sending a message to putin and other dictators around the world and to erdogan for instance who has played one role in this scenario, and also jailed more journalists than any other leader in the world in the past year, and all of this happening, and the president's comments on the very day that the committee to protect journalists has the annual event in new york city to call attention to the way that journalists are under fire around the world. >> and one of the most important principles that the united states stands for is the press freedom, and the freedom of the dins dents and the the people to express their views. when american ambassadors and

counterparts go to the foreign capitals and talk about the importance of respecting the rights of political discourse and protecting political activity and those words mean and nasty world will be played right back to the united states and it is going to undermine our ability to get things the done. >> jeremy bash, thank you. and happy holiday to you and your family. >> thank you, andrea. >> and coming up, madam speaker, and how she got a would-wibe ril to drop her challenge. minimums and fees.

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welcome back. in a bold show of political strength nancy pelosi cut a deal to side looline the only other democrat who was publicly considering challenging her for house speaker. marcia fudge said that she would drop her bid for speaker as she would be appointed to a leadership role. and now, joining me is donna edwa edwards and msnbc analyst rick tyler and senior adviser to newt gingrich and ted cruz, and you

have seen a few of the leadership rivals, and the effect on the rise of the republican party, and on this stage, nancy pelosi has as firm of a grip on what is happening. >> the if the sky is blue, she is will be the next speaker. and this is why she is speaker and will be gangs, because she is i skilled at maneuvering this. and i am saying this, because i am not someone who does not support her, but why would you not nominate the woman who brought you the biggest gains since watergate, and the anti-pelosi group does not have a leader or candidate, and given the election and the opportunity they have, and why would you try to split the democratic party when you can move forward and the democrats are counting on the democrats who finally hold

republicans and particularly donald trump accountable. >> donna, you wroed in the op-ed with rick tyler, you know, the democrats don't blow this now, and your caution is that they should not overplay the hand. >> well, that is right. they come, and what i think that we have seen now is that they have come off of some of the largest and the historic victories that we have seen and you need a leader in place, and if you are going to counter donald trump, you need a leader in place in the house who has demonstrated her effectiveness, and can corral the democratic caucus and get some things done and order the investigations that are necessary flord to sin set the table for the ma jjorit and it made no sense to me, and even the concession to marcia fudge was, you know, it is a good one, but it was not really a concession, because nancy pelosi announced that they were going to have and focus on the elections, and the voting rights act and marcia fudge had led that effort when she was the chair of the black caucus, and so that makes sense. i think that pelosi demonstrated

in this, her skill at at knowing the needs and the wants of the memb members of the caucus and to be able to get them together. did not really think that there because a real threat to her leadership. she was counting the votes, and she is going to be coming out of the caucus strong, and ironically, she is going to be coming out of this a stronger leader because of it. >> and do you think that she has to signal, donna, some sort of implicit term limit in that after two years she would step aside and try to groom a successor or not in the cards? >> i don't believe that is in the cards, but you can see it from the way she is organizing the caucus, and obviously n this current term providing more leadership opportunities on communications, on elections, on vice chairs of the subcommittees in ord in order to develop that leadership and nancy pelosi was not handed the leadership. she worked for it, and so somebody in that caucus is going to have to step up and begin

demonstrating that they are working for it, too. because it does not come as a freebie. i mean, it is a really big job, and the fact that marcia fudge actually stepped back is a recognition that, you know, the fund-raising, the organizing, the legislating and the strategizing and the being a tactician, and all of those things are necessary for the next leader. i think that members who want anybody who wants to be speaker needs to start taking a lesson from nancy pelosi. >> and rick, we had a debate last night, a a tnd the electio next week in the runoff in mississippi, and i wanted to play a little bit of their face-off, because, you have got obvio obviously a huge republican advantage there and especially in the head-to-head with this 16% is the third-party take in the three-way race. and now it is going to be head-to-head, and all of those conservative mcdaniel supporters could trend toward the incumbent appointed senator cindy hyde

smith. >> for anyone that was offended by my comments, i certainly apologize. there was no ill will, no intent whatsoever in my statements. i also are recognize that this comment was twisted and it was turned into a weapon to be used against me. >> no one twied your comments because -- no one twisted your comments, because they came out of your mouth. i don't know what is in your heart, but it came out of your mouth and went viral within the first three minutes of the world, and it has caused our state harm and give n the state another black eye that we don't need. >> and another thing that, rick, came up before the debate and very much a subject was not only her racially-charged comments which she tried to laugh off and really did not apologize there, and if anyone is offended, i apologize, but having dressed nup a kup

in a conservative, rather, confederate uniform is extraordinary. >> and this is donna pointed it out, she is reading the cue cards, and those were not to be allowed, but she is reading the apology, and mike espy is not. and let me say this about mississippi. i have worked mississippi and mississippi is a deep red state and arguably one of the deepest red states and the democrats would have a very hard time picking up a red state, but this is one of the elections to replace thad carpenter's seat, and so when you think of chris mas shopping, and black friday and people are not used the voting at this time, and the cindy hyde smith people and their allies dumped so much money on mcdaniel's head like almost $4 million which is ri c ridiculous in mississippi, and new york it would not matter, but in mississippi, it is a lot of money and people may not be

happy about the way that cindy hyde smith treated chris mcdaniel, and the espy campaign has been clear with the strategy. if nay c if they can get 95% of the black vote which sounds ridiculously hard but it is not, and 10% of the white nonrepublican vote they could win, and likely, maybe, and could it happen? well, it happened next door in alabama. >> we have to leave it there. and happy holidays, you guys. >> happy holiday. >> and happy holiday away from politics. >> and happy thanksgiving. >> and speaking of thanksgiving, a full plate. is why the pentagon sending 12 times the usual amount of pies to deployed troops this thanksgiving. a special investigation right here on "andrea mitchell reports" right here on msnbc. you're headed down the highway when the guy in front slams on his brakes out of nowhere.

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oh, you don't worry about the thanksgiving, because these are tough people and they are great and they have done a great job. you are so worryied about the thanksgiving holiday for them and they are so proud to be representing our country on the border. >> president trump dismissing concerns about the thousands of troops at the border over this holiday and spending thanksgiving away from their

families, because of his decision to deploy the troops to the border and what many have called a political stunt. joining me is courtney cubii the national security and national report and ann guerin, a former pentagon correspondent and kevin baron, executive editor of defense one. and courtney, first of all, i know that secretary mattis has just spoken and you have been speaking with him as the other reporters have to get answers to questions of what the deployment is at the border and what are the rules of engagement. >> and that is right, andrea, and we have had a long extended off camera and on the camera session with secretary mattis where much of it dealt with the border issue, and lot of confusion about some new authorities that may now exist. secretary mattis said on the record that john kelly, the white house chief of staff signed a cabinet-level memo yesterday that now gives secretary mattis new authorities should they be necessary, and that is going to include

potentially, secretary mattis kept stressing that this has not been requested yet, but should there be more use of force by the u.s. military along the border in protection of the custom border control agents there, he now has the authority to grant that, and he stressed over and over again, that there are no specific request, and one thing that is very interesting is that as we -- and this session went back and forth for almost an hour, and as we started to drill down and talk more about this issue, and what became clear is that the u.s. military along the border that was there for weeks now, they had this authority and of course, they had the inherent right of self-defense should they come under attack and if in fact there was a active military service attack coming under attack by a migrant and they had that authority to hold on to that individual and defend that american. secretary mattis was also specific aboutb the fact that u.s. military still will not be

used for any kind of law enforcement, for any kind of extended detention of migrants along the border, and that he said over and over that they will not in any way come close to the use or military for any kind of police or law enforcement in the domestic united states, andrea. >> and kevin baron from defense one, does that fix it for you? >> no, we have two questions that everybody is talking about or two excuses for this. the legal reason that dunford and mattis keep saying that it is kosher and okay and the moral and the resource question of how long it should go on, and what is not really going to matter until the migrant caravan makes it to the border and there is actual interaction with the troops and you will see what p happens, and if it is a peaceful assisting of the the border patrol whether you like it or not or if we get kent state and troops firing back at the peaceful protesters and until then, we will talk about the

legal minutia and if the secretary made a time line of the troops pulling back, because we have had conflicting reports of this happening by the 15th of december. >> and also, exclusive reporting that dhs has spies embedded in the caravans, and checking that out with other forms of communication to figure out what is going on there as they are approach i approaching the u.s. >> yes, that is a stunning story that julia had. the administration is, and has been struggling since the orders were given for the to plus up at the border to kind of jus fi a threat among these 3500 mostly poor largely women families traveling together fleeing violence. now, they are, there may be as president trum t he -- trump a

has said bad actors among them, but main the majority of the migrant workers traveling together, they are peaceful asylum seekers, and the one one of the critics of the president fears that the use of spies among the caravan is an effort to try to dig up dirt on anybody who may be traveling towards the border who they could then use as justification for what as kevin refers to is largely called a political stunt. >> and courtney, yet another story that was kind of mind blowing that not related to this troop deployment, because they are fed from local bases, but that there is a 75,000 inkrecre in the number of pies being sent over the troops deployed, and you can't figure out what the need is other than the menu change. does that mean they are not

getting the veggies or lettuce, one hopes. >> hopefully not romaine lettuce. >> and what are we doing? feeding them pecan pies, but i am not stationed far away from home, and somewhere -- >> yes, nobody can give me a good sense of why this dramatic increase in the number of pies from 2017 to 2018 and the number of troops have remained stable, and so some are going to the border, and they are actually getting sugar cookies and pies from the local bases who will help out, but every so often you co come across this story and you have to dig in and find out what is going on and it is really a mystery, and it is a mystery why this massive increase in the number of pies to be centcom afri africa. and so it is that we should not expect troops to be serve ed d the hardship locations to be eating 10 to 12 pies per person. >> well, guys, who knows, but -- there must be a defense contractor and there is a pie

contractor somewhere hidden in this who has contributed a gazillion dollars to some politician. >> and somebody has to make up a pie chart. >> and the pie spray, and good job job. >> well, we will be eating a lot of pie, but not provided by the dod, and courtney, you always come up with something fascinating. >> the tough questions. >> and happy holiday to you and your adorable twins, and no pie throwing here as well. so thank you, all. and coming up, giving thanks and serious thanks and how one california town is banding together to help the victims of the california wildfires. and stay here for a wonderful thanksgiving story. i'm alex trebek here to tell you

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they took for a better life it gives me so much respect and gratitude. this holiday, give the gift that's connected millions to a deeper family story. order your kit at ancestry.com as we head into the holiday weekend we have an inspirational story from california where one community is reaching out to another. residents of lincoln, california, this's a suburb outside sacramento, are going to be cooking and serving meals for families living in shelters of losing their town of paradise. joining me is jeanette, a medical receptionist in lincoln,

california. thank you very much. tell me how this came about. >> hello. >> how did you organize this? how did you think about it and get the whole community involve sfd. >> so originally what we wanted to do was, you know, provide thanksgiving for a few families after watching everything unfold on the news. what i did was i contacted a local hotel where they had a few families staying so i wanted to really help them, you know, have a nice dinner on thanksgiving. whether they were planning on going out to eat or not, i just wanted to put it on the table. and so i reached out to a few other community members, if they wanted to help. and before i knew it, it just unfolded into a really big event. >> i mean, you have a fairly small town. i guess about 47,000 people. it's -- so, you know, it is a mid-sized city there in lincoln. how many people have come together? how did you organize it?

>> i'm sorry. you're kind of breaking up. how many people are helping? >> how did they organize? >> yeah. i started a facebook event, like i said, originally it was only supposed to be maybe ten families we were going to help. so i started a facebook event which, you know, it's on a flyer you're showing and we made the flyers and on the event on the facebook event the entire lincoln community came together and wanted to bring, you know, turkeys, dishes, desserts, so it -- right now i think the event has over 400 people interested in coming to help. and all -- you know, community people. we have -- i'm going do guess roughly 200 people in the lincoln community that are bringing dishes. we are not doing any of the cooking. everybody's cooking for us. that also consisted of the turkeys so the community picked up frozen turkeys for us from the turkey drive and they're

going to be cooking the turkeys and bringing it to us. we are not doing any of the cooking. it is all the city of lincoln, the residents that work together for that. >> and the fire department is helped. i read that 1,600, some 1,600 turkeys being donated and something for the pet that is groomers help the pets who have been really also put in shelters. >> yeah. so it's a local grooming shop. my dog spot in lincoln and what they're doing is she is taking her van to the pavilion so if there's somebody that doesn't want to leave their pet alone at the hotel they bring the pet to the pavilion with them. tina, the owner, will pick up the dogs from there or cats and she's going to take them to her shop and love on them, bathe them and groom them if needed and take care of while the people enjoy their dinner. >> is the air getting any better out there? >> it's gotten a lot better.

yesterday it was a lot better, yeah. it is forecasted to rain but event will be indoors so i think it's going to have a good outcome and ultimately it is -- it's for the community to welcome everybody. i think it's going to be great. >> i think it's already great. jeanette, you completely embody the spirit of thanksgiving. we thank you so much for joining us by skype and wishing you dean entire town of lincoln and the people you are helping some relief from the tragedy that they have been enduring. thank you so much. >> thank you. >> for more ways to help those affect affected by the california wildfires, go to my twitter where we have a link of relief organizations that have been vetted and we'll be right back. i found my tresiba® reason. now i'm doing more to lower my a1c. once daily tresiba® controls blood sugar for 24 hours for powerful a1c reduction.

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happy thanksgiving to all and ali velshi for "velshi & ruhle." >> and you, andrea. happy thanksgiving. see you soon. good afternoon, everyone. stephanie's off today. it's wednesday, november 21st. let's get smarter. >> president trump trying to rip a rage out of nixon's playbook. "the new york times" reporting that he wanted to use the justice department as his personal prosecuting force. >> he wanted to order the justice department to prosecute former fbi director james comey and hillary clinton. >> he believes