time. right now the killer, if he's and this desert doesn't give up its secrets easily. ♪ welcome to "kasie dc." i'm steve kornacki. we are live every sunday from 7:00 to 9:00 eastern. and tonight, ready individual one as court filings pile up. is the white house prepared for the special counsel and for democrats in control of congress? plus, the president tries to find his wartime consulary. nick ayers is no long or his way in. and former fbi director james

comey is set to speak with nicolle wallace. his first interview since testifying behind closed doors in the house. we'll bring you the latest from them as soon as that conversation begins. but first, a simple question, is the president prepared for what is coming? the southern district of new york filing on michael cohen alone contains 23 references to individual 1. that, of course, president trump. roger stone tells "the new york times" it has finally dawned on the president that the inquiry is not going away. his lawyers' promises notwithstanding. he has finally figured out this is about him. the president has posted to twitter time and again saying the filings, quote, totally clear him and much more in the outside legal team says a counterreport is being prepared. but "the washington post" cites one friend of the president who says trump is angry, but he's not really worried. others say the white house is,

quote, stuck in a bunker mentality and largely resigned to a plan to wing it. one former white house official telling the paper a war room. are you serious? they've never had one. we'll never have one. they don't know how to have one. with that, i'd like to welcome in my panel. with me on set, business and politics reporter for "the wall street journal," shelby holliday. editor of commentary magazine, john podhoritz and investigative reporter anna scheckter. also with us from tucson, arizona, msnbc national security analyst frank figliuzzi. and washington senior adviser for moveon.org, karine jean-pierre. thank you for being here. does trump, does this white house know what it is in store for? let's just put that on the table first. what it potentially is in store for here. these explosive court filings on friday that seem to have really sort of stirred the pot when it comes to this question of

investigations. two sort of different fronts here. one involving michael cohen, the campaign, hush money, women who could have come forward about donald trump. another potentially involving manafort, trump, russia. those questions. let me start on the first question of michael cohen and the campaign. what is it that we learned friday? what's the potential exposure for the president? >> the southern district of new york came out with, i actually think, more damning court documents on friday than even mueller's documents because they went into detail about these two hush money payments to the two women at the direction of trump. so cohen made those payments at the direction of trump but then there's another concurrent investigation led by mueller looking at russia and the russian real estate deal that cohen was pursuing well into 2016, into june 2016. and cohen lied about that to congress.

he told them that deal had been wrapped up and closed up much earlier. so what mueller and the southern district, they both have been doing is painting this picture, setting the scene for the multiple lies that michael cohen, a very, very close ally, formerly, to president trump was telling over the course of a long period of time. and in fact, cohen was lying about the moscow project until september of this year. it was only in september that he came clean about the extent to which they wanted to pursue this russia deal. so there was a ton of news that came out of the court papers on friday. >> frank, let me ask you about the russia piece of it because this idea of what michael cohen is now saying and this idea of trump, the folks around trump pursuing a deal, a business deal in russia well into the 2016 campaign counter against what cohen had previously told congress. how does that intersect? does it intersect with this question of potential collusion

with the russian government. of russian government interference in a presidential campaign. has that link been made through any of what we've seen in the last few days? >> absolutely. if you look at the filing by mueller and read between the lines because there is a bit of vagueness here and it's deliberate vagueness but clearly what mueller is pointing us to is that cohen cooperated on the core issue of mueller's inquiry. that's mueller's language. the core part of his inquiry. what is that? it's russian collusion. and what do we read in the filing? we see that cohen is talking about overtures from russia as early as 2015. understand that mueller would never have included that point if it was merely an overture. but rather, it's a connection that mueller has corroborated through cohen that the russians did more than just an overture. there was likely a response. then we see other connections and references where cohen is briefing family members of trump

on the moscow tower project. so mueller is squarely in the russian collusion business right now. and i think the white house needs to buckle up because they're in for a wild ride on this issue. >> let me take it to the rest of the table here. are there republicans, are there trump defenders, folks in trump's camp who are looking at what happened friday and looking at this situation differently as a result of it? >> i think, without question, i don't know that we know exactly who they are. marco rubio, the senator from florida. i wouldn't say he's a trump intimate but has largely, you know, stopped criticizing trump. was clearly hinting at the possibility that he was very disturbed by this. i think there's -- it is important to note that the one way in which people may be getting ahead of themselves was reflected by senator rand paul

this morning on "meet the press." as far as i know, he said it's not illegal to try to have business relations with russians. and this will be the trump defense. that is cohen can talk to anybody. his family can talk to anybody. the question only goes to whether or not vladimir putin and the russian government and russian intelligence had some sway over him, had some compromat on him that that relationship turned into something that was potentially a conspiracy or something like that. there was no evidence of that in what happened on friday. there's other really bad stuff, but that collusion/conspiracy thing is not indicated in what we saw. all we saw was the extent to which they were trying -- the trump organization was trying to play footsy with russia which meant deal with the russian government, and that's it.

like, you know, until they can establish that the government was involved and that there was some kind of quid pro quo, the stormy daniels/cohen stuff seems to be much more damaging than the russia stuff. >> on that front, in the southern district of new york's filing, his offenses strike at several pillars of our society and system of government. the payment of taxes, transparent in fair elections and truthfulness before government and in business. this section refers to michael cohen, but at times it feels like maybe it was speaking beyond the president's former lawyer. andrew mccarthy writes for fox news about why trump is likely to be indicted, he says, by the manhattan u.s. attorney. he says the sentencing memo in cohen's case reads like an ode to campaign finance laws and argues in the four corners of this case, these words apply to cohen, but president trump cannot feel too comfortable upon reading them. here is the incoming chairman of

the house intelligence committee, congressman adam schiff this morning. >> there's a very real prospect that on the day donald trump leaves office, the justice department may indict him. that he may be the first president in quite some time to face the real prospect of jail time. all the arguments they make about michael cohen, the idea that people are out walking precincts and doing what they should do in campaigns, the rich and powerful seem to live by a different set of rules. this was the argument for putting michael cohen in jail on these campaign violations. that argument was equally made with respect to individual one, the president of the united states. >> and shelby, you also had jerry nadler, the democratic chairman of the judiciary committee which would oversee any impeachment inquiry, if it were to come to that, also seeming to suggest today that what came out with michael cohen in connection to the campaign, in connection to these payments, in connection to the idea that, hey, did donald trump authorize the intentional breaking of campaign finance laws that that could be impeachable -- an

impeachable offense, do you agree this is the more immediate political danger right now for this white house? >> it's really hard to know actually. i think it is a two-front war right now the white house is facing. but what we saw on friday largely corroborated a lot of the reporting my colleagues at the journal have done which is that donald trump played a central role in not just making the payments but organizing them and plotting them ahead of time in his meet with the national enquirer boss and talking to cohen and setting the page for these payments. i think it's also really telling that in these court filings, prosecutors seem to hint that they have evidence that president trump played a role in the payments and that the payments were made to influence the election. right now you have giuliani and other republicans saying, look at john edwards. it's not a crime to pay off a mistress. this could be done for reasons unrelated to politics but prosecutors wouldn't put that in the document, legal experts say if they didn't have some evidence to corroborate it. so i think that with both the

mueller filing and the sdny filing, this is a public facing document. there is an audience here. the audience could be president trump. could be his legal team. it's also the public. they putting this down as the marker for what we should all know. you should read these documents knowing they are meant to be read by the public and also the president and his team. >> that's important because the point here is not just that these payments were made but that trump lied about all of this, right? he said we have no dealings with russia. >> i had no idea about the payments -- >> had nothing to do whatsoever with stormy daniels, right? so his situational awareness is someone comes at him, he says i didn't do it and then corrects the record later. now we have a situation in which we have cascading lies that are being challenged by official authorities that work for him. that the -- sdny is part of the justice department.

so is mueller. they work for him. and the question then is, will the public say, ah, it's nothing. we knew that he was bad from "access hollywood" and he was made president anyway. or does this just degrade and corrode, you know, even his most substantial support? >> that's what i'm wondering about here. and karine, let me take this question to you. let's take the cohen campaign finance piece of this. moveon.org, the foundation of moveon as an organization was 20 years ago when the president of the united states at that time, bill clinton, was accused of committing a felony. of lying under oath, committing perjury to cover up a politically damaging extramarital affair. and moveon.org came into being by saying he should not be impeached over this. you should not be impeached over committing a felony to cover up an affair. you should be censured and we should all move on from that.

politically, to this piece, this specific piece, we can put russia aside. i'm asking specifically about cohen, campaign finance violations, trump and women, does that apply here as well? >> here's the thing, steve. we haven't seen anything like this since watergate. that's the difference in this. if i were individual one. individual one should be very concerned. so should individual one junior and so should individual one son-in-law. i mean, every -- with every court filing, what we're seeing is mueller is are getting closer and closer to collusion and obstruction of justice. i mean, that is where we are. i think we're going to look back in this period of time and we're going to see it as a pivotal moment, especially these last couple of weeks. and we're going to say, okay, this is the quiet before the storm. more is coming. and that's the thing that we're in -- the place we're here right now. mueller is light years ahead of us. and so there's so much there

that we just don't know. and we just have to wait and see. >> frank, let me ask you. we asked you -- we started this segment talking about this idea of establishing, did the revelations from friday, did the filings from friday move anywhere toward establishing this question of collusion? you heard the point that john was making here that likely the trump defense from at least what came out on friday would be this was -- these were conversations about business that were taking place through the 2016 campaign. maybe they'd even put out this idea that it's been discussed in the public square that trump didn't even think he was going to win the election. he was setting up for what he could do after the election businesswise. is there a distinction being made between conversations that took place along those lines that may look bad but not cross that line versus conversations that amount to collusion when it came to the campaign itself? >> certainly.

so the four corners of the mueller filing do not lay the groundwork -- yet -- for evidence of crime with regard to russia. what they do is point the way to where mueller is going with this. so, for example, from a counterintelligence perspective, if russians stood to gain hundreds of millions of dollars through their relationship with trump on a project in moscow, and understand that vladimir putin has to personally approve that, then rest assured they would be going out of their way to assist trump in his campaign to assist him. and similarly, if he understands that he stands to gain hundreds of millions of dollars if this works, then he needs to be joined at the hip with the russians. and that means the russian government. so mueller is pointing us to where he's going on this. if you stay tuned and wait for the roger stone indictment, jerome corsi indictment if you see the level of assistance

provided by the russians and the acceptance and recent activity of that from the trump side, i think that's where mueller is headed. that's what these filings point us to. >> we're just getting started tonight. when we come back, uncertainty over who will be running the white house. john kelly leaving and nick ayers bowing out. plus the midterms come rolling back in north carolina amid growing claims of fraud. top officials are resigning. nbc and the ap have revoked their calls of a key congressional race. democrat dan mccready has rescinded. and mark sanford stops by after criticizing the president and losing his seat. as we go to break, sometimes we recap what an insane news cycle it's been over the last week. here it is in one day. >> five-part tweet rant. >> about bob mueller and leaking lyin james comey. >> the president has announced nominations for the next attorney general and for the

next u.n. ambassador. >> john kelly is the next to go. >> comey is on capitol hill testifying. >> the dow is off 420 points. >> two major court filings out tonight. >> michael cohen is now facing potentially substantial prison time. >> the trump campaign interacting with a russian national. >> federal prosecutors in new york have accused the president of criminal violations of the federal campaign laws. >> three new court documents. >> we do now have the manafort filing. >> manafort told multiple, discernible lies. an incredible night of news. >> what a news night. place, the xfinity xfi gateway.

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most times when you start a new job, the first day is pretty straightforward. meet the co-workers, fill out a $1040 go to orientation and call it a day. pat reports to his new job in the white house as white house counsel tomorrow morning, and the administration is in a bit of a state right now. at the time, chief of staff john kelly gone by the end of the year it looks like. nick ayers reportedly on the way in but now "the wall street journal" first to report, they couldn't agree on a time frame and ayers is going to leave the administration. ayers is the vice president's chief of staff but reportedly told president trump he couldn't commit to the job for more than

the first three months of 2019. the president reportedly looking at four different options and won't make an announcement until the end of the year. at the justice department, attorney general jeff sessions, of course, is gone. replaced temporarily by matt whitaker. soon to be replaced by william barr, if he is confirmed. shelby, all sorts of activity inside the white house. we've been talking about this idea of john kelly leaving for a long time now. it looks like it's actually going to happen. and this idea that kelly is the source, to the extent there's any sort of behind the scenes discipline in the white house, kelly is the source of it. a white house without john kelly, what would that look like? >> i had the pleasure of interviewing leon panetta when kelly got the job. and he said we'll see how -- it will take time to see if john kelly is successful. he will not tolerate disorderly leaking and shenanigans behind the scenes but did say if president trump decides to hell

with discipline, i'm over john kelly, we'll have a problem. it's hard to know if that's where we are right now because we don't have the straight story out of the white house. there's no way john kelly is staying. looks like he got a little ahead of himself. it's a white house that's desperately needing order. john kelly has done somewhat of an effective job and some say it's just an impossible task. no one can do it. >> the role of a chief of staff and high-ranking person inside the white house, john is it changing? democrats are taking control of the house. there are going to be committees with subpoena power launching all sorts of investigations. we're talking about the possibility that maybe democrats look at one of these avenues and that will be developed from friday and move toward impeachment. is the role of the white house just to survive for the next

year or two? >> yeah, but as chief of staff of the white house is an administrative official who is supposed to keep the trains running and coordinate among the 15 offices in the white house and lead staff meetings. it's an incredibly important job. it's striking nick ayers said to trump, i don't want it. i could stay for three months. i have twins and i have to go back to georgia. that's a lot of crap. i don't know nick ayers. i'm not saying he's a liar but people don't get offered the white house chief of staff job very often. he was the vice president's chief of staff. this is the center of the action. this is the red hot center of world politics, and world power, and he is going back to georgia after being the chief of staff to the less important guy? i'm not buying it. i think he wants out precisely for the reason you're outline chicago is he doesn't want to be anywhere near all of this as the

storm descends on the west wing. >> this was a very politically astute decision for nick ayers. he's going back. everyone is thanking him on twitter. he's so great. everyone is saying we wish your family well. so he can go back to georgia and wait this out because he's watched this play out. he could become enemy number one of trump by the end of 18 months. john kelly is reportedly not really on speaking terms with president trump. so i think he's made this move in a calculated move. i'm sure there were family -- i have young kids, too. i understand there were family considerations to make but he was making a calculated political decision. >> did democrats taking over the hour, what are the adds in the first six months that they have control of the house, what are the odds the democrats are going to move toward impeachment on one of these fronts we're talking about? >> i think what democrats are going to do is hold oversight

hearings on things we should look into. on real issues. on important issues. so i think they'll definitely do that. impeachment, i don't -- you know, impeachment, if it warrants it. if we need it i'm sure they'll go down that road. but just like the mueller investigation, i think they're going to wait to see where that takes them before they start talking about impeachment. but they should do oversight. they're a co-equal branch of government. but i want to agree with john on something. i worked in the white house. and for someone like ayers who is supposed to be an up and coming rock star in the republican party, to not take the biggest job of them all, does say a lot about what some people -- how some people view this administration. you are talking about a white house who cannot be managed. trump cannot be managed. and he undermines his people who

work for him and throws them under the bus and goes at it alone so many times. you are a tweet away from being fired. that's the white house they're dealing with. >> what do you expect in terms of the posture, the approach this administration, this white house takes toward these investigations in these coming months from the democrats in congress and from the special counsel and southern district of new york as well. >> well, i think what concerns me the most, steve is the departure of john kelly. essentially the departure of one of the last remaining remnants of adult supervision. when you think about what the approach is going to be to these incoming --slaught of investigative threat. the president is not going to be able to restrain himself. he's going to lash out repeatedly and that on any given bad day, you could see a strategy -- unfortunate strategy of trying to fire rod rosenstein and/or bob mueller. things could get a lot worse here.

there's a window of time before william barr takes his seat at the department of justice while whitaker is sitting there. don't be surprised if on a bad day, particularly if the president feels his family members are threatened with indictment, that we see some irrational act occur where truly mueller or rosenstein are threatened. i don't see a strategy other than deny, deny and when you need to shift to saying, i did it but it wasn't that bad. that's what we'll see to the point where he can't defend himself anymore and don't rule out the possibility that mueller and/or the southern district of new york will attempt an indictment either while he's in office or under seal for execution after he leaves. >> on that note, frank figliuzzi, shelby, anna and karine jean-pierre, thank you for being with us. top officials have resigned in fewer than 1,000 votes separate two candidates in the one outstanding house race left

in the country, north carolina's 9th district. amid complaints of fraud. there is now uncertainty over whether there may be a new election. we are joined by the state's republican party chairman and by the democratic candidate who thought he had lost. back after this.

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republican house candidate mark harris ended up with a 905-vote lead over the democrat dane mccready. the state has refused to certify that race as they investigate claims of irregularities and fraud. new federal election filings show that harris' congressional campaign owes more than $30,000 to a consulting firm called red dome group for its work specifically related to absentee ballots. that firm contracted with a man named mccray dowless who is a person of interest in its investigation. it's a political operative accused of illegally collecting absentee ballots from voters and linked to similar accusations in the past. joining me now, the executive director of the north carolina republican party, dallas woodhouse. thank you for taking a few minutes. i saw the other day you laid out the conditions i think under which you would say we should have a new election held. basically you said harris, your party's candidate, the

republican candidate, should be certified if the winner can be determined the number of potential votes we're talking about here does not indicate his winning margin. i'm just looking at this in this one county in particular, bladen county where this seems to be the focus of interest here. 684 absentee ballots were cast. and 495 absentee ballots were not returned. just add those two together you're over 905 right there. can you say -- can it even -- is it possible to say with certainty that this wasn't affected by any absentee ballot shenanigans? >> well, smarter people than me will have to figure that out, steve. this entire debacle has shaken us to the core. it is disgusting. it is not what the republican party stands for. i'm sitting here today in the middle of a snowstorm. in the middle of an electoral storm, and i swear we're going

to have the locust and black plague come at us next week. it's been horrible. we have mr. mccready coming up. we need to treat him fair and resolve this, but i think the important thing is there has been a systematic failure going back over a decade through three governors' administrations. dozens of members of boards of elections, prosecutors, political parties that have all been part of a system attic failure, and we have to fix this for the long term. the winner of this congressional seat and who and when they are seated has really become a secondary issue. >> so you're attaching this. a longer term concern. but it is part of addressing that longer term issue because i know there's been some reporting that suggests this particular operative we've talked about has, in the past, worked with democrats, worked with republicans. okay. but in 2018 in this congressional election that's

now unresolved, the state board of elections in north carolina so far is refusing to certify. we know he was working for the republican candidate. is there an argument to be made that as part of creating a new atmosphere going forward, you say, look, the basic fairness of this election, just 905 votes between them -- between these two candidates and all of these questions, that's part of moving forward you hold a new election. >> look, we're not ready to call for a special election yet because i think the media has been enormously helpful in bringing much sunlight, the greatest disinfectant to this. but as good as the media reports are, we have to wait for the state nonpartisan investigators. and part of that, having a new election has to meet a court standard because, you know, you have to balance what happened there with throwing out 285,000 people who cast legal ballots who are not in question. it is a tough balancing act. i don't know how we get there, but i think working together that we can. >> i guess -- let me read from

the law here in terms of what under north carolina state law it would take for the board we're talking about here to be justified in throwing out the election and calling a new one. the law says that they should do that if the irregularities or improprieties occurred to such an extent they taint the result of the entire election and cast doubt on its fairness. so it's not a specific quantitative criteria. just saying the basic fairness of the election is called into question. i guess my question to you, what does that mean? what would that mean? >> well, traditionally, it has meant that there is a likelihood or that the race outcome was overturned or substantial likelihood it could have been. it doesn't mean that you have to get to over 905 votes. you just got to get somewhere in the neighborhood. but i am beginning to think the investigators will lay it out and it will become obvious. either obvious there was some

bad behavior and, by the way, we are in favor of serious criminal prosecutions, putting these people for long prison sentences who did this. these are paid political mercenaries. this is a scourge on our democracy, and it has to be run out. but i worry about the 285,000 people who cast legal ballots. if we went to a special election in the middle of the winter, we'd probably have 25,000 or 50,000 people voto 225,000 people will likely be disenfranchised. you know, i have some issue with a nonquantitative measure. we have always based new elections on a bipartisan basis and based on some sort of numerical calculation. i think that's what's best for the state in the long run, but other people who understand these things better than i do will have to make that determination. i just think the disgraceful part about this is there are so

many innocent victims here. the 750,000 people are not going to be represented when congress begins. mr. mccready -- both candidates, if they didn't know about this it is just a horrific situation that we all have to work together and pledge can never happen again. and the media has to hold us accountable for that for years and years to come. >> all right. dallas woodhouse from the north carolina republican party. thank you for taking a few minutes. now let's bring in the democratic candidate in the 9th congressional district, dan mccready. officially trailing this race by 905 votes. dan, thank you for joining us. the state board of elections has set a deadline to collect evidence to hold hearings to try to decide if it can go forward and certify this election or if it will take another course of action. from your standpoint, is there anything that the board of elections could learn, could ascertain over these next two

weeks that would allow you to sit back and say, okay, i'm satisfied. i lost this election? >> you know, it's been a really unbelievable week. the evidence, the affidavits are pouring in, not just day by day. they're coming in hour by hour. i was as shocked as anybody to see the state board of elections decide in a bipartisan 9-0 decision a couple weeks ago not to certify this race. but the evidence has been pouring in. and i think a lot more of that is going to happen over the next couple of weeks. the amazing thing in all of this is that my opponent mark harris, who hired the known criminal, mccray dallas that you spoke about, hired this shady character to run his absentee ballot program, has yet to answer a single question about what he knew and when he knew it. and i think that mark harris owes it to the people, owes it

to the people of north carolina who had their voices, their votes stolen from them to come clean and actually answer the questions. >> let me ask you this, though. you ran in this district. you know this district really well. i keep reading these stories and hearing from people down there that they were all sorts of stories, chatter, rumors, whatever you want to call it about bladen county, about absentee ballots, about shenanigans that go back years that involve this fellow mccray dallas. did you know who he was during this campaign? was this something that was on your radar? >> i never met the guy. i didn't know who he was. but, you know, my opponent mark harris went out and hired him. this guy -- bladen county is a small county. these are small towns. you know who the shady characters are. this guy is a known criminal, a known fraud ster. he'd already been investigated for absentee ballot fraud. the incumbent congressman robert

pittinger said on the record that he sat down with this guy for a few minutes and decided to stay as far away from him as he could because he was so shady. >> i'm just curious because i haven't -- forgive me if you said this elsewhere, but as a tactical matter, as a campaign matter, i'm genuinely curious. were you aware that he was working for your opponent's campaign? were you worried about it? was it something on your radar, strategically. that means this could happen in bladen. was that something you were thinking about? >> you know, we were thinking about it and worried about it. and we looked into things a little bit toward the end of the election. we kicked the tires a little bit. it's hard as a private citizen, you know, i'm a marine corps veteran. i'm a business person, not a private investigator. so you can only do so much as a private citizen. and that's why i think it's so important that the north carolina board of elections is

conducting a full investigation right now because, you know, these criminals need to be put in jail. and anybody that did something wrong and needs to be held accountable. and mark harris needs to end his silence and tell the people what he knew. >> dan mccready, the only uncalled race right now. >> good to be on with you. >> we did invite mark harris, the republican from this race, to be on the show but his campaign declined. coming up next, congressman mark sanford joins me next. we'll talk about the lessons he learned from standing up to president trump and losing in a republican primary.

welcome back. joining me is republican congressman mark sanford of south carolina who sits on the house oversight committee. congressman sanford, appreciate you joining us. you have an interesting perspective, obviously, on a lot of the issues we've been talking about throughout the course of the hour here.

you were defeated earlier this year, narrowly, in a republican primary for your house seat. the president in the final hours of that campaign weighing in against you. you are sort of regarded as an example out there potentially of what happens to a republican who crosses president trump in this day and age in terms of a republican base. i wonder, what is your read after this election? we now have republicans losing, it looks like, 40 seats in the house. may end up 41 if this north carolina situation were to get overturned completely. but 40-plus seat loss for republicans in the house. that, you want to say psychology in the republican party base that cost you your seat, has it changed at all because of this november election result? >> not yet. i mean, i think what it says, it's a harbinger of things to come in the future. in an electoral sense. i think there's a limit to what soccer moms and what business people will put up in terms of rhetoric and tone.

it says that the real problems as you get to the general election. you saw a lot of, i would argue, great folks wiped out in the midterms based on the trump effect. but as to the primary voter themselves, i think the people are still fairly locked down with where they were. i think the value proposition with trump is largely economic. and as long as the economy holds, they'll stay by him. but when the economy tips, and you can begin to see some of this with what happened in the stock market this week, i think that value proposition is gone, and there will be a turn. so i think there's a half life to the trump effect but it's still pretty strong in primaries right now. >> what's the temperature among your republican colleagues in the house? what are they saying? what do you hear from them behind the scenes when it comes to the political standing of this white house with everything that's swirling around it? >> you know, i think that there are two different levels. i mean, publicly, and i'm an example and other people are

example, the way in which after the midterms, in essence, he danced on the grave of the likes of carlos carbela or barbara comstock, people he said were not close enough to him and that was the reason they lost. the fact is those folks had taken tough votes in marginal districts to advance his agenda that very much stood by him. and the accusation was inaccurate. so what you hear is, at a private level, people, obviously, concerned about the amount of turmoil in and around the white house. whether that's something like -- with kelly leaving or some of the things we've seen here hit the headlines of late. publicly, not a lot of comment. people don't want to get in the crosshairs of a bad trump tweet. >> specifically also, i'm curious, when it comes to the court filings on friday, democrats out there saying and talking now about impeachment. some democrats who weren't talking about it necessarily before looking specifically at

the michael cohen campaign finance case saying if it can be established that the president directed folks to break campaign finance laws, which would be a felony and would be an impeachable offense. what is the willingness of your colleagues to stand by the president in that kind of a political battle? >> let's see how it all plays out. we don't know yet. i was around for the last impeachment and typically, unless you have everything really locked down, impeachments are difficult political endeavors and so, you know, people say look, i don't want to deal with it, let's do as was done in the midterms, see an electoral consequence but not have this in the hands of the politician. whether or not there is an impeachable offense that can be proven, we don't know. should it come now that there is a more delicate political question, how hard they advance or not.

>> i'm curious. i can remember 20 years ago republicans almost up and down looked at bill clinton and said bill clinton committed a felony and lied under oath and committed perjury and committed a felony to cover up a politically embarrassing affair and because of that, that warranted impeachment and republicans that control the house went forward and i'm peached him and the senate didn't convict him. should that same logic apply 20 years later when it comes to a republican president that would stand accused of directing the breaking of campaign finance laws to cover up a politically embarrassing affair? >> yeah, i think you'll see the same political dynamic hold true with democrats as their base pressures them to do something about it. but i think you'll probably see the same political effect we saw 20 years ago, which is even if the house did something, i expect the senate would not and you would see the same in essence movie play out 20 years

later in terms of political drama on the hill. >> to you is that impeachable? >> i don't know what i don't know at this point. if it's true, yeah. in other words, i think that whether the president, the vice president, anybody in officer ought to be held to the same standard and laws as anybody else here in the 300 plus million folks that make up america. >> all right. congressman mark sanford from south carolina. thank you for joining us. appreciate it. more "kasie d.c." in just a minute.

president trump announced and he's leaving the surgery to remove his palm from his face. >> we'll talk about who might today is the day you're going to get motivated...

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fallout from the russia investigation. top democrats are renewing discussions about impeachment following new court filings by robert mueller's team. but president trump insists there was no collusion. plus, chief of staff john kelly is on his way out, but who will replace him? the vice president's chief of staff nick ayers out of the running. the president trump calls his former secretary of state dumb as a rock after rex tiller said the president regularly attempted to do things that would violate the law. ♪