beginning of the year. 8.1% on the s&p 500 which looks more like your portfolio. 6.1% on the nasdaq which is now officially in a bear market. i'll see you back here at 10:00 p.m. for "the last word" and then tomorrow at 1:00 p.m. and 3:00 p.m. eastern. thanks for watching. "deadline white house" with nicolle wallace starts right now. hi, everyone. it's 4:00 in washington, d.c. donald trump folding in the face of extreme pressure from his base on funding for the border wall. after a visit from freedom caucus members mark meadows and jim jordan, who you might recognize as the tips of donald trump's spear in his war against his own justice department. trump announced he would not sign legislation to avoid a government shutdown. the president now clearly hostage to his base as he likely views them as his only bulwark against possible impeachment. and the political damage that could ensue. with every organization he has ever run now under investigation

and several of his former associates facing sentencing for their crimes. the president can't afford any decline in enthusiasm from his voters or members of support in congress will crater. adoration from his base is trump's lifeblood. the threat of losing his supporters' affection enough to make him throw the rest of the gop and the federal government under the bus. as soon as he started getting criticized by them, he yearned to appease them. and the president's base was very, very upset with the president after white house press secretary sarah huckabee sanders indicated the president might blink and work to avoid a shutdown. take a look. >> i would argue, it's not a punt. a punt actually helps improve the field advantage. this is a fumble, and we need to make sure the president stays firm. and a lot of people are very nervous this morning about whether the president will cave or not. >> i think that not funding the wall is going to go down as one of the worst, worst things to

have happened to this administration. forget mueller. the wall, the wall, the wall has to be built. >> this breaks a promise with his supporters. >> four times we've promised them that we would build the wall and put it on a spending bill and now we're saying we're going to kick it to february. >> 5 million, billion measly when compared to the size of the federal budget for border security is an impossibility. somebody needs to explain to me how this happened. >> no wonder he's grumpy. he answers to those people. donald trump's message to his base, though, ask and you shall receive. >> at this moment there's a debate over funding border security and the wall. also called so that i give them a little bit of an out, steel slats. we don't use the word wall necessarily, but it has to be something special to do the job. steel slats. i've made my position very clear. any measure that funds the

government must include border security. has to. not for political purposes but for our country. for the safety of our community. >> you got that? steel slats. but the policy serving as consequences, nine federal agencies will close. 420,000 people will work without pay and 380,000 workers will be furloughed. the friday before christmas. and i thought we were going to start saying merry christmas again. here to take us through the developments, bill kristol. eli stokols, white house reporter for the "los angeles times." former democratic congresswoman donna edwards and sam stein, politics editor for the daily beast. eli, let me start with you. this seems like a very transparent and desperate and almost sad, if it wasn't donald trump, effort to appease the people he's most afraid of, his

base. >> he's not really gotten used to the co-equal branch of government that is congress and the fact you need votes to get something done. he can just howl at the moon, demand things, say he wants border wall funding and the votes will materialize to fund it. it's not people in congress trying to explain that system to him. it's rush limbaugh going on his radio show and ranting and saying somebody explain this to me. the somebody who decided to explain it to rush limbaugh happened to be brump who called rush limbaugh today. limbaugh went back on the radio and told them about this call from the president and said -- and then we see the president marching in lockstep with limbaugh and ann coulter and the most strident voices that claim to speak for his base. and now you see we're on the brink of a shutdown because a lot of members of the house and senate have gone home. some members of the senate may have to come back for a vote, possibly tomorrow. but there doesn't seem to be any backup plan here. so either the president and his

republican allies have decided we're going to put up a good fight, stand here, make a stand, at least look like we're fighting for this and not take the short-term cr and maybe they'll sign it once this fails tomorrow right up against the deadline. but if they don't, we are looking at a shutdown, and the president has already rolled himself on this because last week in that meet with pelosi and schumer he said with all the cameras in the room, i will proudly take -- what did he say? the mantel. >> he branded it. >> so they are sort of backed into a corner, too, at the white house. they know what the president wants and the pressure from the base but also the president's statements already out there. if this government is shut down, it will fall squarely at his feet. >> and it was pointed out to me today this isn't just about the wall. it isn't just about the base. but what he needs the base to do for him in the coming months and year. that's protect him from what he increasingly believes is possible and that's his own impeachment. >> i think that's true. if you look at what has happened, he's clearly playing to the base but here's the way

this is really going to play out. they are going to -- paul ryan and kevin mccarthy are going to put his wall on the -- >> it's not a wall. his steel slats. >> i don't even know what those are. it goes back to the senate. it fails. and then another measure fails on the house floor and then republicans and democrats and democrats again carry a spending bill for republicans so that paul ryan can go off into the sunset and we can get into january. that's the way this is going to play out. i think the president has looked at his base and said i need you for the future and we're going to rally that base. and at the end of the day, could mean those 425,000 federal workers, but it's also, you know, checks that don't get processed, services that don't get delivered. parks that can't be visited. all of those things. and so this is going to be felt by more than just, you know, some random federal workers. it's going to be felt by the

entire economy. >> i don't know that they can pass the spending bill on the floor of the house. democrats will universally oppose it and you'll have republican defections and some of those retired republicans are scared of him. it's a terrible miscalculation for this reason. what does he really need to stop impeachment? he needs senators. last night the senate by unanimous consent voice voted this bill. mitch mcconnell, jim inhofe, tom cott cotton, conservative senators went along. we're not going to fight this now but kick it down the road until february 8th. if you are a serious conservative trump-supporting senator right now you think this guy is totally out of control. he's responding to three people on twitter and two talk radio hosts and two random republican congressmen? we just took a vote that might hurt us a little bit. we did it. they didn't take a roll call

vote. by unanimous consent. and i just think the degree to which he might pick up a little with some of the people listening to rush limbaugh out there. among actual people in washington who follow this who have been disposed to at least give him the benefit of the doubt, people we've criticized all these months and years are giving him so much benefit of the doubt. this is a moment of, are you kidding me? i just voted for this last night and you're pulling the rug out from under me? >> he's succumbed to pressure on this front but he's facing pressure on the syrian front from republican senators and there's no signs of him buckling on that. i couldn't think of a more asinine legislative strategy than what donald trump has done. not only taken ownership of the shutdown before it happened but his white house said they'd weigh in only when someone passed something. the senate went and passed something and now they'll cut the senate out from underneath him. not only that. he is basically saying, i'm going to shut down the

government. then i'm going to get on my plane and go to mar-a-lago and play golf during the holiday season. i don't understand -- and to top it off, his big innovative solution to all of this to get this through is not to reach out to lawmakers but to brand it steel slats. that will give lawmakers the cover they need. if you step back and think about how backwards this whole thing is and how stupid at times this whole thing is. it's remarkable. in the end, it may go down to florida and he doesn't care. but a lot of actual republican lawmakers will be like, this is a little crazy. maybe we should rethink this. >> on that point, one of his allies said it shows his base is kryptonite. that without those people that we just played cheering him every day, he's paralyzed because he needs that intensity or members of congress will no longer bend to his will. >> i think that's basically -- and he operates off of emotion, right? and it was emotional for him to

watch ann coulter -- >> unfollow him? >> no, he unfollowed her because it was deeply personal that she attacked him. >> he's wrong and he's 8 years old. >> when he hears rush limbaugh yell at him over the radio and sees ann coulter attack him on twitter and when he watches fox news and people are going on saying you cannot do this, that's the type of stuff that gets to him. and that's why you see, you know, lawmakers and even lobbying shops admit that the way to reach this president is basically through the chyron operative on fox & friends. >> a lot of these conservative republican senators, which is his core. what he needs at the end of the day. the democrats are going to hold the house. a lot of them swallowed hard and vote forward the criminal justice reform bill which wasn't their version. they are more law and order oriented. they passed it. a lot of people -- the president wanted it. he would have -- that would have been the big story this week that he put aside his normal

partisanship, worked with a broad bipartisan coalition. he pulls the rug out from under them today. the degree of damage, a stupid thing it will probably get worked out in the next 24, 36 hours and we won't have much of a government shutdown if any, but it's -- it reminds these senators they aren't dealing with someone who is getting more rational, easier to work with, who is watching out a little bit for them occasionally. >> never. >> it's just the opposite. >> and they'll not walk back their vote. they just took this vote last night, even though it was, you know, it was voice voted. that was their vote and they'll not walk that back and then pass a wall that they rejected the night before. this is a ridiculous strategy. >> so much frustration after two years of dealing with this. they take a bath in the midterms. aren't looking forward to the next couple of years. and republicans see a person who is totally impulsive, easy to manipulate. all you have to do is get rush limbaugh to say something and he

completely redirects what he's doing. that's frustrating for them. and this is a president who never think about the political considerations for anybody else. he's not thinking -- he's trashing mia love and others -- they are still members of congress right now. and all those people he said didn't endorse me, sorry, don't let the door hit you. they aren't in washington right now. those are votes -- the vote counting not happening, they're going to need those 218 votes if they'll get something through the house. i don't think democrats will help them. cory gardner facing the toughest re-election fight in 2020. he's home in colorado. you think he wants to come back and vote for a bill on border funding? the president doesn't ever put himself in anybody else's shoes. >> another point brought to me by a different trump ally was that the president is revealing how frightened he is when he acts like this. to act like such a cornered animal in public, to act like he is, you know, within hours of being criticized that he has no

capacity to withstand any criticism. he looks so tremendously weak that he is revealing and blowing any shot he had of pretending he isn't scared by the southern district investigation and the mueller probe. >> he doesn't have confidence that he's the one who controls their own base. he thinks they can still be moved by rush limbaugh and ann coulter. he doesn't think he can stand up and explain what he's doing to his base. he's not even really trying. just being pushed around. >> there is also this house of cards element to this. he spent two years saying he would build this wall and mexico would pay for it. he had people chanting. they knew the whole routine. and maybe people understood in the moment it wasn't realistic. but at some point it was going to be exposed as unrealistic. and let's be honest. once democrats take the house, the idea that a border wall ever happened in its first term is nil. he's looking at the very real possibility that all the people he told that he would get a border wall and mexico would pay for it would say, well, gee, what happened to that.

and that is not insignificant. >> and aaron blake has a great piece. everything he tweets about the wall is a lie. he's on six sides. he says mexico will pay for it. he says the wall has already been built. he has got his base so confused around this issue that i think there's some concern among his political allies and outside advisers that this issue will not be what it was for him two years ago. >> nor should it be. >> if he can't deliver on his central promise, then, yeah, there are -- i'm not -- i don't disagree with laura ingraham or ann coulter because this was the promise. if you can't deliver on even that, then what good are you? >> he underestimates his own ability to get through these thickets of contradictions and lies being exposed. it's very easy for him. we've seen him do it on health care. just blame congress. even if it's controlled by republicans. i've talked to i don't know how many trump reporters at their rallies when they say i don't

like everything he says or i don't believe he's going to do everything. but -- and then they roll out why they like him. they are always finding and rationalizing reasons to stay with him. i just think that his bond with them is tight and yet he behaves like he's so scared of losing them. >> i'll believe it when i see javanka down there hammering in steel slats. special counsel robert mueller. is he getting ready to charge roger stone? the house intel committee voting to release a transcript of his testimony. also ahead -- donald trump finally has a loyalist overseeing the mueller investigation. but will acting attorney general matt whitaker intervene on the president's behalf? and the hits keep coming today. donald trump's next permanent attorney general sent a secret memo to the justice department shredding robert mueller's investigation. should he be confirmed? all those stories are next. i'm a veteran

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donald trump finally has what he desperately wanted since the day he learned he was under investigation for potentially collude with russia. a loyalist atop the justice department who may be willing to intervene on his behalf. the justice department today announcing that it has concluded acting attorney general matt whitaker will not be recused from overseeing the russia probe. this permits whitaker to involve himself with the mueller investigation in any way he chooses but a justice department official tells me today that the overall management of the special counsel investigation will remain in the office of deputy attorney general rod

rosenstein. this news comes as the president a permanent pick for attorney general, bill barr, is revealed to be with "the washington post" is calling an anti-mueller zealot. barr writing in a memo first reported by "the wall street journal" that mueller's obstruction investigation was, quote, grossly irresponsible, fatally misconceived and carried potentially disastrous implications. rod rosenstein sought to assure the public that everything is just fine. >> we've continued to manage the investigation as we have in the past. and it's being handled appropriately. whether it's bob mueller or rod rosenstein or matt whitaker or bill barr, the investigation is going to be handled appropriately by the department of justice. >> here's hoping. but the twin developments of whitaker not recusing from the mueller probe and barr being an extremist on the validity of the probe itself could undermine the investigation's independence at a crucial time. the house intel committee voted to release to the special counsel its transcript from

roger stone's appearance before that committee. this follows the post reporting, last friday mueller requested an official trance crypt of stone's 2017 human. the first time the special counsel had asked the committee to turn over material it has gathered during its investigation. so what is robert mueller up to? to help us figure that out, let's bring in frank figliuzzi and matt miller, former chief spokesman for the justice department. eli, donna and sam are still here. i want to put another wricnkle f context into this whitaker nonrecusal story because "the post" has some reporting that's important for this conversation. they report a senior justice department ethics official concluded acting attorney general matthew whitaker should recuse from overseeing the special counsel robert s. mueller's probe, examining president trump, but advisers to whitaker recommended the opposite. and he has no plans to step aside. the latest account of what happened underscores the high stakes and deep distrust within

congress and in some corners of the justice department surrounding whitaker's appointment to become the nation's top law enforcement official. frank figliuzzi, this sounds like a department divided about whether it's ethical at all for methodue whitaker to have any role at all in the management probe. >> so, look, this reporting is phenomenal. matt whitaker today stands on a conflict of interest cliff. he has a choice to make. he can leap off that cliff and spend the next year or so testifying before congress, testifying to the special counsel, being interviewed by fbi agents, maybe even testifying before a grand jury as to who told him what and when and whether he communicated with the trump administration about actions he would take against the special counsel or he can do the right thing, the smart thing and stay the heck away from the special counsel. we're about to see how bright and how ethical this acting

attorney general is. and if the past is prologue with regard to trump associates, my money is on dumb and corrupt. >> frank figliuzzi, i have some reporting that suggests he's not thought of as a bright legal mind by his own peers. so if he's not thought of as one of the best and brightest legal minds, and these are people that interacted with him while he was a u.s. attorney from iowa. and we know he's back channeled to this president. that's how he got the job. he back channeled and undermined his old boss jeff sessions while he was -- he was jeff sessions' chief of staff and he got this job by whispering some sort of sweet nothings to this president about how he can fix his problems. we've already established he just might be both those things. >> look, he -- he's got a situation here where if he's not conflicted right now, he will be conflicted if he chooses to start weighing in on the special counsel's office. because of "the washington post" reporting, if accurate, we have

a senior career ethics official at doj saying you can't do this. now he's hand picked allegedly his own group of advisers to tell him something different. he's going to spend the next weeks, months, perhaps a year trying to explain this and possibly implicate people in the trump administration as to why he's sitting in that position. if i were him, i would just take the safe route. do the right thing. let rod rosenstein continue to lead this thing and do not weigh in, lefst you ruin your legacy and career for whatever he has left for the future. >> is there any appropriate role for matt whitaker who on tv has gone out and criticized central events and episodes we know are under investigation, in the collusion and obstruction investigation? is there any appropriate role in him overseeing any of this, the southern district of new york or the mueller probe? >> you can make a case for why he could oversee the southern district of new york.

he hasn't made any public comments about that. there are questions about his impartiality. but he's not, per se, conflicted from that. houfrks wi however, with respect to the mueller probe, we've gotten used to seeing crazy things out of the justice department the left two years. what happened today has left me speechless. an acting attorney general who has gone to ethics officials and said we're not going to officially ask for your opinion because we don't want to be bound by it, but if we were to ask your opinion, what would you tell us? we would recuse. so he appointed a different group of officials. they won't disclose their names. these secret officials have now recommended, they've said you can ignore the officials. it's okay to stay in charge of this probe. it's the most brazenly corrupt act i've seen out of the justice department since i've been watching the department. it goes to go he's in the job in the first place. the president wanted someone who would shut the investigation down or at key moments steer it

away from the president. if matt whitaker followed the ethics rules, he wouldn't be able to do that. you see him blatantly disregarding -- >> the ethics rules were there for jeff sessions not just to preserve the department but to protect himself. >> to protect the department's integrity and protect you from scandal. >> let's go through the problems matt whitaker may face. if he's told donald trump that he'll deal with this investigation. and let's say he's also offered to help him out in the southern district where we know the president is enraged to be named as individual one in some of those cohen filings. what problems -- do you think whitaker, is he thinking he needs a defense lawyer at this point? >> he's wise to have one. he's going to face oversight investigations of what's happened. just what's happened today with this recusal question alone is a problem. two he's going to face an inspector general investigation. to set up this end around around the ethics officials is so

brazenly corrupt. there will have to be a look by the inspector general. three if he ever does take any action to block this probe, after being told, informally or formally, they asked for the opinion informally, told he's supposed to recuse and he didn't, he's going to have to face real questions of whether he's making a criminal act. >> frank figliuzzi, can you jump in and add on anything you'd want to know about what sort of commitments or signals matt whitaker has sent before he ignores the advice of the doj ethics office? he's also in this funky position where they've sort of contorted a legal opinion to allow him to assume the job of acting attorney general in the first place. >> right. so good point. it's even questionable whether he's validly named and appointed to this acting position. so let's play this out, right? he actually becomes owned by the special counsel right now because the moment the special counsel decides to question him as to who communicated with him out of the white house, what

were the circumstances by which you agreed to take this appointment, then he is conflicted, right? so because he becomes a fact witness in an obstruction investigation which he's trying to oversee. so i actually almost secretly hope that he goes and tries to interfere because mueller is going to have two fbi agents show up at his home. by the way, the fbi only provides security for two people. the fbi director and the attorney general. so every day mr. whitaker is surrounded by fbi agents protecting his life. wasn't be hard to send people to his house at the right time and say, we're going to question you now about what -- who said what to you when about this investigation. so the moment he steps in to the inquiry, he becomes a fact witness and mueller owns him in terms of recusal and conflict. >> frank, i'm having too much fun playing the investigator through your eyes. let me keep this going for one more minute. whitaker was installed by don mcgahn who spent more than 30 hours that we know of with

robert mueller as an important witness from my understanding in the obstruction investigation. would mueller want to know why mcgahn put him there in the first place? >> oh, i think indeed. and i think that question has already been asked and answered by mcgahn. i really do. and i think mcgahn's being as straight up as he can be with mueller. i think mueller knows the answer. that's why i'm implying that mueller owns whitaker. if whitaker isn't bright enough to figure that out, he shouldn't be sitting in the department of justice. >> my last question. frank, do you think that chris christie saying on television that matt whitaker's job as acting ag is to land the plane of the mueller probe is another piece of evidence to suggest that this was all a premeditated and incompetent effort to obstruct justice? >> yeah, it certainly implies that there's been prior conversation about what the mission is for whitaker. and chris christie is begging to be interviewed, by the way. people just cannot keep their

mouth shut. and believe me, there are people inside the special counsel's office who are monitoring media statements, social media platforms. they've got christie's statement and they're just figuring out whether they need to interview christie. >> matt miller, people also like to write really long memos where they impugn the validity and even the existence of the mueller investigation. the new -- i guess he's not the acting -- the selection to be the next attorney general, maligned isn't strong enough, gutted the entire rationale around the obstruction of justice investigation. do you think he's going to be confirmed? >> i think there are real questions about whether he can be confirmed, or if he is confirmed, whether he'll have to say he'll recuse himself. two issues with this memo. one are the underlying views. extreme views of executive power. as long as the president is exercising his constitutional article 2 authority, it's not

obstruction of justice, even if he's doing it with a corrupt purpose and fired the fbi director to hinder a probe. >> he said he did. >> he has the right to do that. that's a very aggressive view of his executive power. however, there are constitutional scholars who hold that view. those views of themselves aren't disqualifying. the problem is the fact that he sent these views to the department of justice and talked to the president about them before he was appointed. there's some questions about whether he shared this memo with the white house, the first version of "the wall street journal" story. he had a line he shared it with the white house lawyers over the summer. that line was removed from the story later on. people are doing more reporting now trying to figure out when the white house -- >> who would he have shown it to, emet flood? >> i presume it was shared with emmitt flood. >> and if he knew about this memo and recommended him anyway, could that be construed as an attempt to obstruct the -- >> i don't know if it would technically be a crime but it may not be a technical crime but it's obvious what they're trying

to do. whether he shared the memo or not, it's clear the white house knew what they were getting when they appointed him. in selecting both an acting attorney general and an attorney general nominee, they seem to find two of the only lawyers in the country who have the most hostile views possible to this investigation. >> of robert mueller. >> that didn't happen for no reason. >> frank, let me get you in on mr. barr and ask you a version of the same question. if they knew all along that mr. barr's views about, really, all of the president a conduct that's now under scrutiny in the obstruction investigation, does that make you assume he would have ended the investigation on the obstruction side? >> no problem having opinions, no problem in scholarly legal debate. the problem is, if there is a quid pro quo, if there were conditions that involved obstructing an ongoing investigation in order to nominate william barr. so again, it's kind of, if i want your opinion, i'll ask for

it. why does this man send his memo, send a letter with his opinion on this unsolicited to the department of justice? it's not just for grins or he's up late at night thinking scholarly thoughts. something is going on here. and again, take my comments on whitaker about spending the remaining days of your tenure in testimony, being interviewed by people, right? do you want that? that's coming. the house is going to say to the new attorney general, if he even getted confirmed, we're going to spend a few weeks talking about how the heck you came to write your opinion letter and who talked to you about what you would do with the special counsel if you got nominated. >> all right. much more investigation news to cover this hour. is special counsel robert mueller getting ready to charge roger stone? and is donald trump's ignorance defense in the campaign finance case taking a hit today? we'll bring you brand-new reporting that may spell trouble for the president's defense in the case out of the southern district of new york. stay with us.

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he directed me to make the payments. he directed me to become involved in these matters. including the one with mcdougal which is really between him and david pecker and david pecker's counsel. i just reviewed the documents in order to protect him. i gave loyalty to someone who truthfully does not deserve loyalty. >> he was trying to hide what you were doing, correct? >> correct. >> and he knew it was wrong? >> of course. >> what michael cohen details there lies at the heart of the campaign finance violation argument. to be charged, a defendant needs to know his or her actions broke the law. when prosecutors implemented trump in the hush money payment saying cohen acted in coordination and at the direction of individual one, who we now know as the president, the defense became, well, even if trump knew about it, his involvement wasn't a crime. but new reporting by "the wall street journal" shows his

knowledge of campaign finance regulations could very well put him in legal jeopardy. the journal reporting, sworn statements by president trump dating back several decades indicate he has a deep understanding of campaign finance laws, legal experts say. which could be critical if investigators ever pursue a case against him over his alleged direction of hush money payments in the 2016 campaign. mr. trump's statements were made as part of a 2000 regulatory investigation into his casino company. in 1988, testimony for a government integrity commission. everyone is still here. eli, it sounds like this case is the one that still, as all the experts keep saying, could represent the most imminent legal threat to him. >> that's what the folks i've talked to have said in terms of the imminent legal threat. i've also talked recently to people who study white collar crime. and they say this is unusual for a president, but for high-profile, wealthy people who have done this for years and years, they have what they call an illusion of invulnerablity.

they know it's wrong. they just think they're not going to get away with it. they think -- >> manafort is the same way. >> there were comparisons made to martha stewart, ken lay, george keating. just a lot of, you know, comparisons. to people who are high-profile, have a lot of money, can pay for a lot of lawyers and make thing goes away in court, can pay people off and they think the bill will never come due and it's probably only coming due in this case because this person, individual one, was elected president. >> it seems the public facing evidence may be catching up with what prosecutors in new york already have. and that's all of the components of the intent to commit this crime. >> i'm in complete agreement. and what's really got my attention, nicolle, is rudy giuliani's comments lately on this topic of campaign finance violation. he shifted to, if he did it, yeah, he might have some knowledge of it. it's not a deep knowledge, but, yeah, it's not a crime.

collusion is not a crime. so we now have a stance, a defense strategy that is, i did it, but i don't think it's criminal. that is a slippery slope. if that's the best they can come up with, they are looking at charges out of southern district of new york. my only question is whether that's going to be attempted while he's in office or he's going to get hit with it when he leaves edward. >> the other person who may be about to be charged is roger stone. robert mueller requesting from the house intel committee on friday an official transcript of roger stone's testimony. they voted today unanimously to provide him with that. what do you make of what's happening there? >> they already have the unofficial transcript. so you'd just assume it just needs the time stamp on it so they can use it in charging him. and i think that that's a direction this is going. let me go back for a minute because people keep portraying donald trump as an unsophisticated player in the campaign finance field. over a decade, he made more than

a million dollars in campaign finance contributions to candidates, to committees, to organizations. that shows somebody who actually has a deep knowledge of what the limits are, what you can do and what you can't do. i think all of this is beginning to come together. and i think once roger stone is charged, you'll see more flailing by the president of the united states because it is closing in. >> i have tape that illustrates the point you just made about donald trump's knowledge of how to work over a campaign finance. >> when you have a situation where you have people giving you millions of dollars, when they call up, even if it's not in the best interest of the united states, when they call up, you do what they tell you to do, okay? hey, excuse me. i'm one of those people. now i'm on the other side of the fence. who knows it better than me? i get republicans, democrats. they call. they come in. senator, united states senate. you go see them. the greatest thing that ever happened is campaign finance

laws. $2,000 for a senator. but i like it because it keeps your spending down. you understand that, right? >> sam, in his own words. >> he seems to get in trouble by his boasting, and this is anas saying he is an expert in this field and, therefore, you know, he knows the insides and outsides of government and you should elect him. now can be used against him in witness testimony. this is problematic. the campaign finance case and the sdny is really -- it seems incredibly vulnerable for trump. but then step back and there's like four other vulnerabilities. the trump foundation was just dissolved. >> the inaugural committee. >> serious questions around who was donating to it and why. new developments on why they were talking about sanctions relief during the transition. of course, the flynn sentencing. so there is just so many pressure points this president is facing that it's remarkable to me that in the missst of all of this he's doing things like completely revamping our syria

policy and shutting down the government. how many fires do you need to put out at once? >> is it logical? who wanted that policy announcement yesterday? >> there, you can connect the dots. >> matt miller, what do you make of where things stand with roger stone and why hasn't he been indicted yet? he has said he expects to be indicted. >> i think mueller has been putting the final touches on it. i think he expected jerome corsi to plead guilty. corsi backed out of the plea agreement. since we saw that plea agreement and corsi went and did his bizarre interview with ari melber. he talked about the fact that he got immunity to talk to the grand jury about -- he came up with a fake story for roger stone to tell congress. he had to get immunity. well, if someone admits to perjury, the person who went in and perjured themselves has a false statement charge to congress coming soon. the question is, are we going to

see just a -- i don't mean to minimize it, but just a false statement or perjury charge? or is this, you know, going to be a collection of charges against roger stone that are not just lying to congress but also the broader conspiracy in the election? we won't know that, obviously, until -- >> so michael cohen, the final thing he pleaded guilty to before his sentencing was one count of lying to congress. we now have this reporting, great reporting from "the washington post" that securing an official transcript from the committee would be a necessary step before pursuing an indictment. on the list of all the people that went up before congress, it includes the president's son, includes jared kushner and steve bannon and rinse priebus. do you think we're entering a period where all of these people should be crossing their ts and dotting their is? >> i think all of them that lied should be worried. look, i think there are a couple of things here. >> let me just say, congressman

swalwell and schiff have indicated several people lied. >> those people have legal vulnerability of being charged. they have been charged and spending time in jail for lying. this is leverage for the special prosecutor. if he gets transcripts of other people who have testified it's leverage to flip them. the reason cohen cooperated with the special counsel is because he pled guilty to lying to congress in the -- about russian matters. so anyone who -- >> about trump tower. >> so anyone, and eric prince is a good example. he seems to have lied to congress. there are probably others. anyone who has lied to congress is vulnerable to that testimony being transmitted to the special counsel. the special counsel coming to them and saying, get charged. spend time in jail or cooperate with me. tell me everything you know and maybe you'll get no jail sentence. >> is charging the crime of lying to congress likely to strengthen all of the incoming new chairman and women in the democratic house leadership as they take over in january?

it seems like mueller is sending a very strong signal that lying to congress is as serious a crime as lying to the fbi. >> lying to congress is lying to the american people, right? these are our elected officials, and what mueller is doing, it's a secondary purpose to message. it's not his primary focus. but you better believe that he knows what's happening in january with the house and he is letting them know that i am catching liars. this house has been lied to. but i am with matt on strategy. i believe that what we're seeing and what we're going to see very, very soon. this asking for the official transcript is -- we're days or if not a couple of weeks away from indicting stone and/or corsi. and the strategy is going to be call them in. don't tip your hand and tell them everything that you know about russian collusion. just say, look, you've lied to congress. you've got a choice here. give up the russia stuff. let me know about the collusion issues. and we'll talk. because if he tips his hand and

says i've got all of this russian data on you, then it's too early. they start fighting. they are looking at many years in prison. it's not going to go well. i think the strategy is to flip each one of these on to the president. >> frank figliuzzi and matt miller. for all the political and legal trouble facing the president, he's getting high marks today from vladimir putin. that story is next. -looks great, honey. -right? sometimes you need an expert.

i got it. and sometimes those experts need experts. on it. [ crash ] and sometimes the expert the expert needed needs insurance expertise. it's all good. steve, you're covered for general liability. and, paul, we got your back with workers' comp. wow, it's like a party in here. where are the hors d'oeuvres, right? [ clanking ] tartlets? we cover commercial vehicles, too. i think there's something wrong with your sink.

i think i'd get along very well with vladimir putin. putin is a nicer person than i am. >> he might be bad, he might be good, but he's a strong leader. he said it is not russia. i will say this, i don't see any reason it would be. >> weird, right? never an unkind word for vladimir putin. comes as no surprise while washington, including the pentagon, was up in arms over trump's decision yesterday to withdraw troops from syria, his

favorite friend overseas, putin, spoke out at his year end news conference and said i agree with him. trump's foreign policy decisions always seem to benefit changing the republican platform to be more russia friendly, fighting to implement sanctions by congress, attacking western allies constantly, inviting putin to washington, even when advised not to, and citing again and again and -- siding again with russia over his own intelligence community on whether or not russia meddled in the 2016 election. bill crystal is back. makes me miss mccain. >> miss mccain and george h.w. bush. >> why aren't they hair on fire about this? >> they should be. i just saw that mac thornberry

sent a joint leather with adam smith, incoming chairman, criticizing syria withdrawal, asking it be reconsidered. maybe trump will bring republicans and democrats together, responsible ones on the hill against him. he may be going, i was talking to someone close to people in the defense department, he may also be going for quick withdrawal from afghanistan. he believes this. i think he has his own indebtedness to putin, but believes in america first and part of america first is not getting involved in messy, complicated situations with a few thousand peace keepers and it is uncertain and unresolved conflict. i would argue, many would argue they're doing more good than harm, the cost is worth paying at least for now, but i think he's determined to go ahead with this version of america first agenda. >> do we make a mistake separating the investigation into possible collusion and coordination with russia from foreign policy stories that please vladimir putin?

they seem to be one in the same. >> no. the list you went through shows the inter connectivity of it all. it started with changing of the republican party platform during the convention. we're still not entirely sure why and who decided that would be the change. of course, continued into the transition in which general flynn was talking with the russian ambassador about not responding aggressively to sanctions, which you can argue is within his right, then lying about why he did that was curious, and of course it continued into the helsinki summit where he had this bizarre performance. in reality, everything trump is doing on the global stage is connected with investigations or seems to be connected to investigations. i agree with bill, there's an element of this that trump has been this sort of retrench from the national, global scene, focus on the home land type of guy, and to a degree this is fulfillment of it, but you can't separate these, they're too

intertwined, too many questions surround what influences were brought to bear. and that continues as we know that he was seeking business in russia through the course of the campaign which gave the russians leverage. >> and through november. >> i want to put you on the spot. i think we have too much timidity in the press to put it up every day and say there's not much else on putin's to do list. he wants america out of syria so he can use that country and use their port. he wants release of sanctions, i think there's too much timidity to put these up every day and say why. >> i think that's the big question. some of this might get resolved in the mueller probe. others, congress has to dig into this because it also seems that even when congress imposed sanctions, this administration fails to implement them, and the question is the why that goes to

that. i think that it is going to be important for us to not just leave it on the back burner, keep a running list without calling attention to it. then it makes it seem like this is all okay and there's something we can't identify, but there's something that doesn't feel right. >> let me see that list again. eli, it strikes me if president obama had done all these things and they were all on vladimir putin's to do list or say a country that republicans are critical of his diplomacy, done ten things that iran wanted, there's the list. if president obama had done this many things an adversary wanted, republicans would have marched on pennsylvania avenue to the white house. this would be flashing red lights. this would have been a presidential crisis of epic proportions. why isn't this front and center? >> in large part because the republicans decided they're now donald trump's republican party and they're not going to, so they're going to say whatever trump says, they're afraid of

trump's base like trump is apparently. you can go back not long ago, when mitt romney described russia as the number one geopolitical foe and was mocked for doing so. i remember when jeb bush was a frontrunner, did a trip to a number of nato countries to show he was a hawk on russia. that was the standard boiler plate republican foreign policy orthodoxy. trump inverted it completely on his head. we can talk and speculate what the motivations are, are they investigations related, is there kompromat on donald trump, is it always because he has been an isolationist, we don't know. one thing that's obvious, there's no process going on between the pentagon and white house when the president decides to send troops to a fake war on the border or when he pulls troops out of syria. he is not conferring with mattis, he is doing it almost governing by tweet, controlling the military by tweet and that's

troubling to a lot of people worked in government a long time that that's how the government is going now. >> someone close to mattis today, i spoke to, i said would this be the straw that breaks his back, he said no, mattis is too worried what will happen if he left. >> we have to sneak in a last break. don't go anywhere. be right back. last break. don't go anywhere. be right back. eligible card members up to fifty thousand dollars, decided in as little as 60 seconds. the powerful backing of american express. don't do business without it.

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i could talk to these friends all day, but we're out of time. that does it for us. "mtp daily" starts now. hi, chuck. >> hi, nicole. apologies for the horrid weather in washington. >> i come to town, you rain on me. >> welcome to trump's washington. if it's thursday, the white house and capitol divided by a wall. good evening. i am chuck todd here in