elected a democratic governor and democratic congress person. so when you talk about expanding the map, the map is expanded. the question is whether or not you can keep it that way. >> great point, a lot of snap back. thanks for joining us. that is all in for this evening. the rachel maddow show starts now. joy reid in for rachel. >> thank you, chris. good evening. rachel has the night off, but we have a lot to get to tonight, including a bombshell allegation about donald trump's long time personal attorney michael cohen. and what newly disclosed cell phone records might tell us about potential collusion with the russians in the run up to the election in 2016. this new reporting about michael cohen has got kind of a csi feeling to it, so stay tuned. meanwhile, this is night six of the government shutdown. congress was back in session today for a hot second, by which i mean less than five minutes.

gavel to gavel, the house of representatives was in session for 2 minutes 43 seconds. the senate, 4 minutes exactly, because they're working. and as you might imagine, they got about zero did you think to end the shutdown which means substantial parts of the federal government will remain shutdown right through this weekend and on into next year. happy 2019, everybody. white house essentially declared defeat on the shutdown, donald trump vowed to own before he changed his mind and tried not to own it. releasing a statement that was curious for what it left out, the word wall, which appeared nowhere in it. and also reiterating that the president really, really doesn't want a shutdown. he just can't sign a bill that doesn't, quote, adequately fund border security, which i guess is the new euphemism for really big, really tall wall. we'll have more on that later in the hour. but first, i want to take you back for a moment to january 2017, nearly two years ago. it was just a few days before donald trump's inauguration to become president of the united

states when like an iceberg dead ahead of the titanic, this unexpected news item appeared on the trump world horizon. it was late in the evening on a tuesday night, january 10th, 2017, when buzzfeed published what we now refer to as the steele dossier, a collection of raw intelligence reports written by former british spy christopher steele. at the time buzzfeed published the dossier we didn't know much about it other than the claims made in the dossier that were shocking, salacious, and rather impossible to verify. we later learned that the dossier had at first been commissioned by a conservative purveyor of u.s. political website looking to dig up dirt on donald trump. when they decided to stop funding it, the clinton campaign and the democratic party picked up the bill and steele searched for trump background info continued. but in substance, what buzzfeed revealed to the world on that tuesday night in january was a series of unconfirmed reports

detailing the ways russia allegedly cultivated donald trump for years, and then set out to help him win the presidential election. and the ways in which members of the trump campaign allegedly cooperated in those russian intelligence efforts. the dossier named names, including the president's long-time personal lawyer and fixer michael cohen whose name appears multiple times in the dossier. as someone who was a key go between between the russian effort and the trump campaign. by this point in january 2017, michael cohen had become a fixture on the cable news circuit as a trash-talking outspoken defender of donald trump. but the steele dossier painted him in a much more nefarious light. on the second to last page of the dossier, on page 34, christopher steele wrote that a couple months before the election, in august or september of 2016, as the kremlin was growing more concerned about the negative public fallout from the hacking of the dnc and the dumping of information through wikileaks that was meant to be damaging to hillary clinton's campaign, as that fallout was

worrying the kremlin and they were seeking to put a button on the operation, donald trump's personal attorney, michael cohen, spirited away to prague. quote, trump's representative cohen accompanied to prague in august or september of 2016 with three colleagues for secret discussions with kremlin representatives and associated operators, hackers. continuing from the dossier, according to redacted, the agenda comprised of questions on how deniable cash payments were to be made to hackers who had worked in europe under kremlin direction against the clinton campaign. and various contingencies for covering up these operations and moscow's secret liaison with the trump team more generally. that was a shocking set of claims. the president's lawyer allegedly meeting clandestinely with russian officials to facilitate deniable cash payments to hackers working to help trump get elected. the president's lawyer allegedly considering ways to cover up moscow's secret liaison with the

campaign. there are a lot of unconfirmed stuff in the dossier. the stuff about michael cohen is like right out of a bond move i. michael cohen denied it all the night the dossier came out and he's kept denying it. #fake news he wrote hours after the dossier posted. i've never been to prague in my life, he tweeted. alongside a photograph of his passport. cohen also went on tv. >> in the report posted on buzzfeed, it claims that trump's lawyer, michael cohen, met with kremlin representatives in prague in august of 2016. one small little itsy bitsy problem, michael cohen has never been to prague, ever. >> wait a minute. am i allowed to look -- i don't want to joke about it because it's serious in your life. >> it's very serious in my life. >> this is your passport. >> yes, it is. >> let's go back to yesterday. you got called by -- >> mr. trump. >> and mr. trump asked you? >> were you ever in prague? >> and your answer was? >> never. >> in your whole life? >> no, i've never been in prague. >> and he wanted to see your

passport. >> he said, michael, i really need to know. i said, mr. trump, i have never been to prague. he said to me, okay. i said, do you want do see my passport? i live close to the office. and he said, yeah, you mind if i see it? i said, of course not. you're the president elect. i'll be there in two minutes. >> so michael cohen was and has been insistent on denying this. two sources, "the wall street journal" and mother jones, say cohen told them shortly after the election that he has not been to prague since the early 2000s. since those reports, he has denied being there at all, ever. and in terms of what the dossier alleges, he says he was in california at that time in 2016 visiting a college campus with his son. since the steele dossier was published in january of 2017, the allegation that cohen was in prague coordinating with the russians a couple of months before the election, that has remained an entirely unproven allegation. the giant question mark in what we know of the -- in what we

know of as the russia investigation. then this past april, the fbi raided michael cohen's offices in an investigation of bank fraud. four days later the mcclatchy news service reported special counsel robert mueller has evidence that michael cohen was, indeed, in prague during the time period alleged in the steele dossier. quote, it's unclear whether mueller's investigators also have evidence that cohen actually met with a prominent russian. but investigators have traced evidence that cohen entered the czech republic through germany, apparently during august or early september of 2016. as christopher steele reported. said the two sources who spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation is confidential. that was mcclatchy reporting in april of this year that robert mueller had evidence that michael cohen was in prague for reasons unknown ahead of the election. the report did not explain what form that evidence was in, or how robert mueller got it. and since then, no news agency

has published a report matching mcclatchy's story, including nbc news. mcclatchy, for its part, has never retracted its story or changed it in any way. they stood by it. even as they stood alone on it. since then, michael cohen has pleaded guilty to a number of charges, including campaign finance violations that he says he made at the direction of the president. that case was brought by federal prosecutors in new york. michael cohen also pleaded guilty to lying to congress about his efforts on behalf of donald trump to build a trump tower in moscow. that charge was brought by the special counsel, by robert mueller. for those crimes, michael cohen, the president's personal lawyer, was sentenced to a total of three years in prison, which he's set to begin serving in march. before cohen was sentenced, the special counsel's office weighed in with the judge, asking him not to be too harsh on michael cohen. they argued, yes, michael cohen committed serious crimes, including withholding information related to the russia investigation. not just from the senate and the

house intelligence committees, but also from the special counsel's office. but mueller's office also argued that michael cohen had in recent months gone to, quote, significant lengths to assist the special counsel's investigation. they said the information cohen provided to them was, quote, credible and consistent with other evidence obtained in the special counsel's ongoing investigation. the special counsel's office pointed out michael cohen met with them multiple times and given them information about michael cohen's own conduct and others core topics in investigation by the special counsel's office. which is very intriguing, but who knows? the special counsel's office does not leak. we do not know what cohen told them. we may never know. meanwhile today, we got what looks like round two of mcclatchy reporters digging into michael cohen and prague. in april mcclatchy reported robert mueller had evidence cohen was in prague in 2017.

today mcclatchy had more to say. here's the opening line. quote, a mobile phone traced to president donald trump's former lawyer and fixer, michael cohen, briefly sent signals ricochetting off cell towers in the prague area in late summer 2016 at the height of the presidential campaign, leaving an electronic record to support claims that cohen met secretly there with russian officials. mcclatchy sources this information to four people who spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of information shared by their foreign intelligence connections. mcclatchy says each of the four sources obtained their information independently from foreign intelligence connections. mcclatchy goes on to report that, quote, during the same period of late august or early september, the electronic eavesdropping by an eastern european intelligence agency picked up a conversation among russians, one of whom remarked that cohen was in prague, two people familiar with the incident said. mcclatchy reports these

foreign electronic intelligence intercepts were shared with robert mueller. now, again today, michael cohen very definitively denied this reporting saying he has never been to prague. when asked if he's ever been to the czech republic, cohen responded, no, capital n, capital o. and another denial, cohen added, quote, mueller knows everything. so the report from mcclatchy has changed in that mcclatchy now cites multiple anonymous sourcing describing the electronic intercepts that show cohen's phone pinging in prague. the denials have changed. the reporting has not. neither nbc news nor other organizations have confirmed this from mcclatchy just like we did not confirm the mcclatchy story from plil. who are the source forz this new report? are they the same sources for the earlier story? why are we finding out about this now? joining us is gray gordon from

mcclafrp mcclatchy who broke the story tonight and in april. thank you for joining us. >> pleasure to be here, joy. >> you saw michael cohen who talked today has denied not only being in the czech republic at all. what is your response to that, having reported on this? >> well, bob mueller is in a pinch because he's got an acting attorney general who now over sees his investigation that is harshly criticized it. he's got a nominee to be the permanent attorney general in bill barr who has harshly criticized the investigation. one would think bob mueller wouldn't want too much about his investigation getting out in the public. former prosecutors have said that this is actually a standard practice for a prosecutor to -- >> but cohen doesn't have to say anything. he could say nothing. >> he could say nothing. >> he said he was never in prague, not in prague ever. >> all i can say to that is

we're going to have to see how this sorts out because michael cohen, as we all know, has been convicted of lying about his dealings with the trump hotel in russia. he's been convicted of being deceitful in a number of ways. and so his credibility is not high. we're going to have to -- we have to follow what our sources that we trust have developed over, over this two-year period, have told us. >> let's talk about the source. obviously you're not going to tell me who your sources are, but let's talk about what they have told you. if there are intercepts that put michael cohen's cell phone in prague, one would think those would be fairly specific. but the reporting by mcclatchy is they were either in august or september. how would they not be more specific if these were actual intercepts that show the phone pings? >> i think they are more specific. unfortunately, we weren't able to pry that out of our sources who are getting information from foreign intelligence agency --

this is a counter intelligence investigation closely held. >> did your sources see the intercepts for themselves, or are they passing along information from other people? >> the sources have -- some of the sources have government sources and some of the sources are, are people who have told us that they have trusted intelligence-type sources they get information from. we don't know the specifics, but we have used these sources on many subjects, and they have been very accurate. >> you know that sounds a lot like the steele dossier. i reread the steele dossier today. the reality is if your sources didn't see the intercepts themselves, did they let you see them? have you seen the intercepts? >> no. >> so what we have, then, is sources have been used before and they're saying they were told that these intercepts exist. >> that is true. >> have they -- what kind of evidence do they provide you for you to feel confident that this is something you're willing to

put mcclatchy's name on? >> we have numbers. we have four sources who told us about this. for another, we have read our -- the beginning of our story to some of these sources and they have absolutely gone over it and over it and over it. we've worked on the story for months. >> did your sources come to you saying, we have this new information, or did you go to them asking? >> well, it's been a dialogue for a long time. so, and my partner peter stone did some of the sleuthing, but we both are well acquainted with the sources. and i would say we developed -- some of this came from foreign sources and those people -- one of those people talked to us over a long period of time before he provided a drop of information. >> i guess the reason that i'm asking is we know that there is a possibility that sometimes sources have motives for putting things out and one of those motives might be to get

mcclatchy to run a story like this even if it isn't true. is there any concern at all people might have had a motivation to get you to run a story that is odd in prague situation, but they didn't want it printed? >> that's not the dialogue we had to create that kind of suspicion because of the people that we've been working with. but you always have to be wary about disinformation. what i would say about disinformation, think about the dossier and michael cohen. this whole cohen episode, the reason it's got so much attention is that it goes -- mueller has not yet charged anybody with collusion or any crime equating to collusion. >> right, uh-huh. >> so what this meeting or purported meeting in prague could mean is the first strong evidence of some sort of collusion. >> uh-huh. >> we're a long way from there. >> yeah. >> we don't even know beyond this the fact that his cell

phone appeared to show up in the prague area. we don't even know if there was a meeting. but this is coupled with some intelligence from an eastern european intelligence agency that picked up this, this conversation, michael cohen is in prague from a russian official, we believe a senior russian official. >> my question to you would be is there anything that you were able to actually physically see for yourselves, that corroborated what these four sources were telling you, anything that looked -- any intercepts that would give you further -- >> i wish we held up for that. one time we thought we had critical mass. it is competitive business. >> it is. thank you for joining us. especially if you get the intercepts, we want to you come back to the maddow show. >> be happy to do that. >> thank you very much. here's another curious part of the reporting about michael cohen. one place where he's denied the allegation about any meeting in prague or being in prague or

ever having been in the czech republic is in dealing with the senate intelligence committee. he told the senate intel committee in september that he, quote, had nothing to do with any russian involvement in the electoral process, unquote. he told them, quote, i have never in my life been to prague or anywhere in the czech republic, unquote. here's the thing. michael cohen plead the guilty last month to lying about the trump tower moscow. if they did have evidence michael cohen lied about being in prague, if that were true, why would the special counsel not charge him with that part as well? joining us is barbara mcquade, former u.s. attorney in the eastern district of michigan. great to have you with us. >> thanks, joy. glad to be here. >> so, barbara, this is a conundrum. either michael cohen has been to prague or he hasn't. it seems like a definitive cut and dry question. he, even up to today, is denying he'd ever been there. he told the senate intelligence

committee he'd never been there. if you're a prosecutor, if the mueller prosecutors had evidence that that was a lie, does it surprise you that he isn't charged with lying -- at least lying to the senate? >> well, not necessarily. i think your skepticism is well placed, i think it does seem to be contradicted -- especially when michael cohen is cooperating and went out of his way to tweet he's never been to prague or the czech republic, it seems the easier thing for him to do would be to just say nothing. it's not necessarily the case robert mueller would charge him even if it is through his phone pinged off a tower, there was pan intercept. that doesn't necessarily mean they have a so case for a false statement. you have to prove that it's true. the ping alone is certainly one

indication. it could be that the sources are telling the truth, but they're being played as you -- an eastern intelligence news agency has reported. maybe it's to their vantage to put in information, misinformation out there about what is going on with russia. so not clear yet, but i think that if this piece of it is true, then certainly that's something robert mueller would want to build upon. >> right. you know, i'm old enough to remember when michael cohen definitively said he never paid stormy daniels a dime and donald trump had nothing to do with it, right? that was a pretty bold faced lie. that wasn't true. he's clearly walked back from that. he's been sentenced now because of the dishonesty, et cetera. if michael cohen, like you said, he didn't have to say anything. but if he went out today and said he'd never been in prague, and he had, couldn't it be opening him up to a larger sentence. absolutely because he's been attempting to cooperate with robert mueller and the southern district of new york. but you may remember the southern district of new york

was quite dissatisfied with his koongs and said he wassing back and refused to agree to a traditional cooperation agreement which means you've agreed to cooperate about everything, forthcoming about every matter known to you. is it about this or is it about other things? is he protecting family members involved in criminal activity? difficult to know what that is. i think one thing that is kind of interesting, this crop rates information that is in the steele dossier. i know there are many people who have criticized the steele dossier and tried to discredit it. many facts have been proven to be true. many have been documented in the manafort document, the flynn documents, and the indictment against the russian hackers. and so it does cause me to wonder whether this is or is not true in light of the fact that,

as we have learned more facts, they seem to match up with what is in the steele dossier. this is more information. this meeting in prague in the adam tuss yea. >> flynn, manafort, michael cohen all mention the steele dossier. cohen is singled out as the linchpin of the contact. whatever it is that he knows, whatever he's telling has to be high level. barbara mcquade, former u.s. attorney of michigan. thank you very much for your time. i appreciate it. >> thanks, joy. >> thank you. much more to get here tonight. we are going to talk with a key democrat on the house intelligence committee who just one week from tonight will be in the majority. stay with us. your home improvement "to-do list" still isn't "to-done". but hey, at least you still have time to get the ford vehicle you've always wanted. just get to the final days of our holiday sales event. see you sometime between now and january 2nd.

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allow me to direct your attention to the calendar. for those of you who lost track of what day it is, that can happen when you've been bingeing on cookies and egg nothing and cocktails. today is december 27th. one week from today is january 3rd. that's important. because on january 3rd, the new congress is sworn in and democrats take back control of the house and all those powerful

committees, including the house intelligence committee, which in addition to having extensive subpoena powers, has vowed to be as determined when it comes to reopening their investigation into the trump campaign and administration as the previous republican majority on the committee was to provide trump cover. joining us now is congressman mike quigley who sits on the house intelligence committee. congressman, thanks so much for your time tonight. >> thank you, joy. >> so, we just spoke with a reporter from mcclatchy whose story tonight is providing what they are saying are four sources who put michael cohen or at least his cell phone, in prague when he says he's never been there. adam schiff has indicated he'd like to call michael cohen again. what do you think, should michael cohen come back and testify either in open session or closed session specifically about whether he was in prague? >> well, today's reporting certainly gives us additional information that he might have been in prague, but it's not perfectly clear. it's not that difficult.

mr. cohen, you are always welco welcome to come back and clear the air. i take you at your word you want to resolve all this. but if mueller knows all, according to your announcement today, i think the american public has a right to know. so, come back and share all this information because these investigations have very different purposes. mr. mueller has to determine who to bring to justice. our job is to find out what the russians did, who conspired with them, if anyone, and how to protect and inform the american public. we can't get to that problem. we can't solve that problem unless everyone, including mr. cohen and others like mr. flynn come back and clear the air. >> what about christopher steele? because a lot of what the dossier alleges is a pretty straightforward attempt to cultivate donald trump even before he was running for trump, really for years to dangle business opportunities in front of him, to get him to be

cooperative. and then he becomes cooperative, right? then the attempt to help him become president is quite extensive and involves multiple members of his campaign, whether it's carter page, whether it's manafort, mike flynn or cohen. it's so complicated. christopher steele seems to be the guy that has the narrative. i would roo consider calling him or calling him in front of your committee? >> well, i think we have to understand what this document was. it was early on without complete information. and he didn't have the benefit of a team such as the special counsel. i believe that the steele document is a well-done document. i believe it's largely accurate. i just believe it was a snapshot taken at the time and it's incomplete. we need the special counsel and the house and senate in some respects working together, communicating, cooperating so we get a complete picture. so i think mr. steel can add

something to that, if he's willing to cooperate. i understand why he wouldn't because of the way he was treated by my republican colleagues. the american people need more information about what took place. more important than all that, though, as you suggest, we are starting next week a fresh with the ability to subpoena documents and people and have them not refuse to answer questions, as was allowed when the republicans controlled the investigation in the house. >> right. we know that one of the through lines in a lot of these investigations has to do with money, money laundering, questions hanging over some of the people who have pleaded guilty. you've been to cyprus, which is supposedly one of the locations where money might have passed through. what do you want to investigate when it comes to that aspect of these investigations? >> i think money laundering is extraordinarily important. i think there are other

countries involved. this is a tough investigation. it's hard to establish a russian oligarch, but i do think it's a critical element to this. we're well aware of deutsche bank's role in financing the trump financial world the decade before they became president. $600 million in new york money laundering from the russians. it is ripe for territory. the 30,000 foot level issues that relate to that, was the president compromised due to his financial dealings either with the russians or as we might suggest, the saudis or other countries? and beyond that, and even more important perhaps, is it's fair for the american public to ask the question. whose interest was the president looking out for as a candidate, and then the president? was it his own? was it russian oligarchs? was it president putin?

or, oh, by the way, the american public? i think that issue still stands today and it's more important than ever. >> congressman mike quigley who sits on the house intelligence committee, thank you so much for joining us tonight. >> thank you. and happy new year to everyone. >> happy new year. thank you. well, political geeks, get ready. we have a story just for you next. stay with us. stay with us ito take care of anyct messy situations.. and put irritation in its place. and if i can get comfortable keeping this tookus safe and protected...

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excited about around here in maddow land is -- wait for it -- the final tallies of political spending. for example, year-end financial filings are giving us a peek into how much money hedge fund manager robert mercer spent in 2018. as major trump supporters, the mercers who are the big money behind breitbart news and the now defunct cambridge analytica, he pumped $25 million into the 2016 election. bloomberg news reports the mercers are stepping back from some of that. a mere -- spending a mere $2.9 million on federal elections this year, that's like a two-thirds spending cut. also hot off the financial presses, the numbers from the mercer family foundation. the advocacy group, map light, got the mercer foundation's tax filings for the 2017 fiscal year. and map light's big take way is all the money the mercer foundation continues to spend on

modern day deniers of climate change. they count more than $4 million last year. you can see in the filings that the mercers donated $800,000 to the climate change deniers at the heart land institute. $170,000 where they cheer the rise in c.o. 2. that kind of spend sergio garcia nothing new for the mercers or frankly any number of conservative donors and supporters of the big industries that do the most to pollute the planet. they've been pushing a long time against environmental regulations so those pesky regulations won't eat into their profits. what is new is that now that side of the protect the environment or pad the profits ledger has a white house that's willing basically even eager to sign onto that agenda. that story is next. stay with us.

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pesticide, a molecule looks like this. it is essentially a nerve agent in the same class of chemicals as sarin gas. it can cause nausea and dizziness and confusion. in high doses it can cause vomiting, convulsion, respiratory arrest, even death. the people who make this pesticide say that a normal low level doses it's perfectly safe. some agricultural experts say the science is not conclusive. part of why it is a' so hard to draw a conclusion is this pesticide is too toxic to be tested on humans. it's already banned from most household uses. by core pyrophos is on u.s. farms. farms use it on dozens of different crops. a few years ago the epa decided to study whether it was still safe to dump all that pesticide into the air and onto our food. and what the epa found was kind of alarming. they looked at the research that was done at columbia university, and this was the headline from

the columbia study. common pesticide "disturbs" the brains of children. the epa came to a similar conclusion. they found that exposure to chlorpyrophos -- the epa suggested banning the use on all food crops, full stop. that ban never happened because donald trump became president. he picked scott pruitt to run the epa, and one of the first things, very first things that scott pruitt did as head of that agency was to kill that ban of the pesticide with the potential to disturb the brains of children. he said there was not enough science to justify a blanket ban despite what the experts at the epa had found before he got there. if the trump administration had not quashed that ban, we would be entering a second year in this country without a drop of that chemical touching our crops.

instead, the pesticide hoses are still on, and "the new york times" has done some remarkable reporting on what that looks like for americans on the ground. quote, in may of 2015, rivera was one of the first to feel it, a pesticide drip had been sprayed on a nearby grove of mandarin oranges. there was a strong taste in the back of the throat, numb lips, itchy skin and watery eyes. a 37-year-old mother of three remembers the smell, dizziness, overwhelming feeling of nausea. other workers thought she was faking it, trying to be funny. when she hitd the ground and started convulsing. when the invisible cloud arrived, she smelled burned grease, believing it was the tractor she turned offer the itching. then came the burning. itching, the nausea. she called the supervisor on her phone who told her to get her

crew out of the field. by then several were vomiting. tewell or three fainted. "the new york times" has just dropped this incredible body of work today. documenting how the trump administration is unwinding environmental regulations at a break neck pace. they've documented the affects of the roll backs, the affects they are having on real people in painstaking detail. and it's not just plumes of pesticide in the california orange fields. joining us now is eric lip ton, investigative reporter for "the new york times" and one of the reporters responsible for this excellent endeavor. eric, great to have you with us. >> thank you so much. >> so, that was just a little bit of your reporting on the trump administration not to ban this pesticide, our new spelling bee word of the day chlorpyrophos. that is the tip of the iceberg you all have found in terms of what they're doing in terms of the environment. can you just give us a few of the highlights or maybe low lights? >> sure. what we've read so much about proposals for changes in environmental rules, but what we

found when we went and looked across the united states was that there are real impacts that are happening. for example, in north dakota, there was a proposal by the department of interior to limit the flaring and leaks of natural gas when there's oil and drilling going on. and in north dakota there's been a massive increase in the a.m. of flaring on an indian reservation there that would have been subject to an interior department rule that limited that flaring and those leaks. but the trump administration basically eliminated all of those limits on flaring, and i went and visited that reservation in november, and you thought the hill sides were on fire. i mean, the flares were burning, you know, everywhere you looked. hundreds of flares burning 30% of the natural gas that they produce there is being burned. it's enough to power 600,000 homes per month. it's just being burned into the air. at times, there are chemicals that are leaking that are carcinogens going into the air. it's an incredible scene. it's quite terrifying, in fact.

this is something that's no longer being regulated by the department of interior. >> we know the trump administration, donald trump came in touting coal. he was going to somehow bring back this 19th and 20th century product and make it, you know, profitable again. talk a little about what the administration has been doing on coal in terms of the environment and has that, in fact, brought back the industry? >> i mean, if there is a single industry that the administration has attempted to help out, it's the coal industry. and of the areas that we looked in both texas and then west virginia, we found examples, there is a regulation that's supposed to reduce the toxic metals being released in the rivers in the united states. it was a single-biggest source of toxic pollutants going into the rivers. that rule has been delayed. 80 different power plants in the united states are supposed to be upgrading their waste water treatment programs, most of which have now stopped the design work on those improvements because of this delay that the epa put.

in texas, i visited a power plant that was going to have to upgrade its air pollution control system to reduce sulfur dioxide, which has attributed perhaps 170 deaths a year quarterback can be attributed to this plant because of the enormous amount of sulfur dioxide it's emitting each year. it's one of the large he felt sources of the united states. the epa under obama said that plant was going to have to install what's called the scrubber to reduce that sulfur dioxide. the trump epa says no longer necessary, don't worry about it. there were nine plants that were going to have to install scrubbers in texas. that's not going to happen. it was supposed to help the coal industry. the energy department reported a couple weeks ago, coal production in the united states declined more last year than it has in decades. so, the utility -- the united states continues to turn away from coal even though trump said he's ending the war on coal. >> great, reporting, eric lypton

from "the new york times." it's sobering reading. thank you so much for doing that work. appreciate it. >> thank you. >> thank you. when we come back, former president barack obama on the verge of making history again in a whole new way. and while this is bound to be salt in the wound for one donald trump. that's ahead. but we still had to have a cigarette. had to. kayla: do you know how hard it is to smoke in a hospital? by the time we could, we were like... what are we doing? kayla: it was time for nicodermcq. the nicodermcq patch with unique extended release technology helps prevent your urge to smoke all day. and doubles your chances of quitting. nicodermcq. you know why, we know how.

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here's a piece of presidential trivia for you. almost every year since 1946, the gallop polling company has asked americans this open-ended

question. what man that you have heard or read about living today in any part of the world do you admire most? gallop reported today, this year the honor went to, not other than, barack obama -- none other than barack obama. obama has been the man americans admire most in the world for 11 years in a row. meaning that if he wins next year, he will tie dwight eisenhower for the most times being named the most admired man. gallop says there are only two presidents to date who did not win the honor while in office. one is gerald ford. although to be fair he was only in office two years and gallop did not do the poll in one of them. the other incumbent president who has yet to top the list is donald trump. but he has two more years left to try. meanwhile, there is something else that happened this week that counts as unprecedented, and that is next. ♪

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yesterday donald trump flew to the al-asad air base in iraq to visit the uss troops stationed there. that part -- that part there's precedent for. there is a long-standing tradition of presidents making time over the holidays to visits troops, in expectation at some time in while in office they'll make a trip like this one to meet with troops abroad. what seems unprecedented is how this president spoke while he was there. >> we want to have strong borders in the united states. the democrats don't want to let us have strong borders. only for one reason. you know why?

because i want it. you know, when you think about it, you're fighting for borders in other countries, and they don't want to fight -- the democrats -- for the border of our country. doesn't make a lot of sense. >> the democrats, the democrats, the democrats. now, i'm no presidential historian, but my understanding is that typically when a president makes this kind much visit, they call for unity and talk about the indomitable greatness of the american spirit or law of the troops for their current mission. they don't do a campaign speech. then again i'm not a presidential historian. joining us now is somebody who is, nbc presidential historian and author of the great new book "presidents of war." michael beschloss. michael, always great to have you with us. >> thank you, joy. >> what did you make of that address that donald trump gave in front of u.s. troops in iraq? >> i thought it was obscene because, you know, just as you were saying, president goes to speak to americans whose lives are in jeopardy, they're in

harms way. the tradition is that you keep it nonpolitical. you try to unite the group, you try to say i am your commander in chief, i am behind you. you do not talk politics. and for him to start talking about, you know, in a nasty way about democrats and nancy pelosi and we have been played for suckers in the past, that's fine if he wants to say those things at a trump rally, at a stadium in the united states, because people go to a trump rally voluntarily. if they hear things they do not like, they can leave. these are young americans, for the most part, who have chosen to serve their country. if the president says something that they privately disagree with, they don't have the right to jeer him or get up and leave the way the rest of us do here in the united states. i thought it was disgraceful. >> there was even a photograph where he was posing with people with maga hats. the idea of the military representing and defending all americans of all political

stripes, that's like a thing, right? it is weird to sort of have them drafted into the republican party's politics. >> that's the whole thing, which he obviously does not understand or does not care about. and i think what's important for all of us is to keep on remembering this is not the way we do things. we live in a democracy. our military is nonpolitical. this is not a dictatorship. this is not an authoritarian system. you know, you go to countries that have systems like that, you have a leader going on making a big political speech. and those in the military are expected to applaud. that's not the way we do it in the united states. >> i mean, donald trump has no history of personal valor -- >> than i've noticed. >> he got five draft post moanments. >> bone spurs. >> i'm sure will get his goat this week, the gallop poll. it's been going on a long time,

donald trump hasn't topped it yet as president. what do you think about president obama has topped it 11 years and president trump is lagging him? >> barack obama is the anti-donald trump. his wife, the first lady, michelle obama's book is number one. he is extremely popular -- reminds me a little bit of a more pronounced version of what we saw at the end of linden johnson's time when l.b.j. was getting really unpopular over vietnam, the gallop most popular man in their poll was dwight eisenhower, the former president, not l.b.j. it was a way of some people essentially sort of going like this to l.b.j., and i assume that to some extent, that's going on with donald trump. >> yeah, very interesting. three african americans at the top of the poll when you count first lady michelle obama, oprah winfrey number two on a list of women, and president obama. that's got to be unprecedented, too. >> fascinating and reassuring. >> yeah. nbc presidential historian and author of presidents of war,

michael beschloss, always, always a treat and an honor to talk to you. thank you very much. >> same with me, thank you, joy. happy holidays. >> happy holidays. that does it for us tonight and we will see you again tomorrow, and now it is time for the last >> good evening, joy. thank you very much. as mentioned i am ari melber in for lawrence o'donnell. we begin tonight with a basic truth. this is not normal. the federal government entering its sixth day of a shutdown that the president said would be his fault. the stock market continuing wild swings down and back up today which is at least partly linked to the chaos in washington and as democrats ready to take over the house next week polling shows opposition to trump and a widespread view he does indeed own this shutdown. >> i will take the mantle. i will be the one to shut it down. the last time you shut it down, it didn't work. i will take the mantel for shutting it down. >> tonight americans agreed by a