>> i don't know. i know life is opening up to you and i don't know. i don't have any answers. i just have to get over this. >> and that's all for this edition of "dateline." i'm craig melvin. thank you for watching. hi, everyone. happy new year. it's 4:00 in new york. donald trump woke up to a sharp rebuke from the "wall street journal" today and the defection of two republican senators on his shutdown shenanigans. so, what do you think he did? well, he set up the rose garden for a press event and held court there for a full hour, desperate to change the subject with a promise of keeping the government closed for years if he doesn't get his steel slats and a threat to build that wall

or those slats without congress, if need be. >> this is him quoting you. i just want to check, that the shutdown could go on for months or even a year or longer. did you say that -- >> i did. >> and is that your assessment of where we are? >> absolutely, i said that. i don't think it will, but i am prepared -- >> are you still proud to own this shutdown? >> well, you know, i appreciate the way you say that, but once -- i'm very proud of doing what i'm doing. i don't call it a shutdown. so, you can call it whatever you want. you can call it the schumer or the pelosi or the trump shutdown. doesn't make any difference to me. just words. prepared -- >> cabinet members are set to get raises tomorrow. how is that fair? >> well, we'll have to talk to the cabinet members then. i'm sure they don't even know that. >> have you considered using emergency powers to grant yourself authorities to build this wall without congressional approval? and second -- >> yes, i have. >> -- on mexico -- you have? >> yes, i have, and i can do it if i want. >> i can do it if i want.

the president is dug in on this shutdown of his own making, but cracks are beginning to show from within his own party. the defections of republican senator susan collins of maine and cory gardner of colorado, who already want a deal to reopen the government, were among the headlines the president hoped to distract from in his rose garden performance. but perhaps the greater existential threat to trump's presidency is this today on russia. in a piece titled "trump's cracked afghan history," the "wall street journal" writes "we cannot recall a more absurd misstatement of history by an american president. the soviet invasion of afghanistan was a defining event in the cold war, making clear to all serious people the reality of the communist kremlin's threat. mr. trump's cracked history can't alter that reality." here are those offending comments the "wall street journal" was responding to from the president. >> and the reason russia was in afghanistan was because terrorists were going into russia. they were right to be there.

the problem is, it was a tough fight. and literally, they went bankrupt. they went into being called russia again as opposed to the soviet union. you know, a lot of these places you're reading about now are no longer a part of russia because of afghanistan. >> our colleague, rachel maddow responded last night as only she can. >> and you may not care at all why the soviet union invaded afghanistan in 1979. that is fine. but the president randomly volunteering that analytical take on that matter yesterday ought to pique your interest, because that view does not exist in nature in this country. the only people in the whole world who were saying that was a potential problem that people ought to look out for, the only people who were talking about that as a possibility were vladimir putin's government. >> and former george w. bush speechwriter david frum writes this "putin-style glorification

of the soviet regime is entering the mind of the president, inspiring his words, and who knows, perhaps shaping his actions. ow that propaganda is reaching him, by which channels, via which persons, seems an important, if not urgent question. but maybe what happened yesterday does not raise questions. maybe it inadvertently reveals answers." finally, and perhaps most critically, a former senior u.s. intelligence official tells me today that it is safe to assume that donald trump's bizarre defenses of russian foreign policy are under scrutiny as we speak. joining us on another day of extraordinary developments, some of our favorite reporters and friends. former u.s. ambassador to russia michael mcfall, chuck rosenberg, former u.s. attorney and former senior fbi official, joyce vance, also a former u.s. attorney, and here with us at the table, charlie sykes, now editor in chief of the new news site the bull work. and philip bump, political reporter for the "washington

post." chuck rosenberg, let me start with you and what i heard from a former u.s. intelligence official today that donald trump's now compilation of seemingly bizarre, seemingly random, seemingly, let me just be blunt, just stupid comments about russia, are probably at this point very likely under scrutiny by people investigating his relationship, his contacts, his coordination, if you will, with russia. >> my goodness, nicolle, they would have to be. you know, i think we wondered why michael flynn was debriefed 19 times. that struck us all as an extraordinary number. but maybe now we have a bit more insight into what the mueller team and the department of justice are looking at. this is extraordinarily serious, if not because it's a part of mueller's initial remit, it's at least part of a counterintelligence investigation. why is the president speaking about russian interests with respect to montenegro and poland and belarus and sort of a revisionist -- and that's, you know, to use the term loosely --

a revisionist history of why the soviets invaded afghanistan. it's extraordinary. >> chuck, you just blew my mind as you often do, but let me just press a little farther with you. so, you're saying that counterintelligence investigation that was opened, we were led to believe because of the actions of individuals like carter page, who seemed a little hapless, and george papadopoulos, who was mouthing off at a bar, could at this point extend to an examination of donald trump's foreign policy utterances and conduct? >> i think they have to, nicolle. and i don't mean to be an alarmist, but i think they have to and here's why. the president of the united states is echoing directly the line of the kremlin on a whole bunch of things. and so, whether or not it results in an indictment, whether or not it's something we ultimately can see, touch, feel and hear, this is something that u.s. intelligence officials have to understand. why is the president saying what he's saying? is he just wrong? does he actually believe it?

or is something being fed to him with the intent of sort of shaping his conduct, shaping his words and shaping his actions? these are incredibly important questions. it doesn't mean you and i will ever know the answer to it, but these are incredibly important questions. >> okay, sometimes things happen here that make me hit pause and rip up the script, and one just did. so, bear with me. i want to dig into this with you, michael mcfall. what has he done, what other possible explanation is there for toeing the soviet -- it's not even modern russia's line, it is the soviet line. and i believe there is a headline from december 4th, that this was part of the putin pr machine, that we're going to try to rewrite their own history about afghanistan. what alternate explanation could possibly exist for doing that? >> i can't think of any. and i think it's important to underscore what you just said. this is even radical revisionist history for russia.

for many decades, it was discredited, the soviet invasion of afghanistan. and by the way, it's not because there were terrorists coming into the soviet union. that's completely false as well, and it's very obscure, as you quoted rachel maddow. where does it exist in nature? it most certainly doesn't exist in the academy, either in russia or the united states. and the only place you can find it is with putin's party, united russia. they have this resolution to rewrite history. and then you have to ask the question, where else could president trump have gotten that information from but for the kremlin itself? i can't think of an alternative hypothesis. >> all right, let me ask you then to speak as sort of a student of russia. how would they be -- i mean, donald trump has proven that he can't be managed. he's also proven that guard rails can't hold in the american presidential model. how are the russians holding him so tightly and so specifically around these messages? >> well, i think it's bigger than russia, by the way.

i think the whole world has found out that the way to flip trump for your interest is to get him in a one-on-one conversation without anybody else around, on the telephone or in a one-on-one meeting, and to feed him these things. and if you speak loudly -- or not loudly, strongly -- that's the word the president likes -- if you speak strongly, you'll flip him. and there's lots of instances of that. one i know well, it's what putin did in helsinki when he met one on one with president trump, and right before then, mr. mueller had indicted 12 gru military officers, so putin came to helsinki with this crazy, cockamamy idea that a bunch of americans had broken russian law, and he said that to the president, and the president agreed with him and said it'd be a wonderful idea to interrogate those people. one of those people was me. that's why i remember it so well. crazy stuff said one on one, and the president, if you speak strongly enough, he seems to tend to agree. >> joyce, i have that.

let's listen and i want to ask you what investigators would think of this on the other side. >> i have great confidence in my intelligence people, but i will tell you that president putin was extremely strong and powerful in his denial today. >> joyce, let me just put a couple other things in the pie that i want you to respond to. donald trump also in a meeting with russians revealed classified information. "washington post" reporting that officials expressed concern about trump's handling of sensitive information as well as his grasp of the potential consequences, exposure of an intelligence stream that has proved critical insight into the islamic state, they said, could hinder the united states and its allies' ability to detect future threats. the president also on crimea telling g7 leaders that crimea is russian because everyone speaks russian in crimea. so, if you're an investigator or prosecutor, you look at the cockamamy defense of the war in

afghanistan in 1979, you look at the defense of annexing crimea, because in trump's words, it's russian because everyone speaks russian there, you look at the helsinki presser, which ambassador mcfaul pointed out, you look at sharing classified information and say i'm so relieved now that that nutjob comey is out of the picture, so much pressure relieved from me, what do you see? >> this really goes back to the point that chuck made early on, which is that if you're investigating this situation and looking at it big picture, you're trying to figure out as an investigator, is this president just extraordinarily malleable? does he listen to whoever he hears from the most strongly and the most recently? or is there perhaps something more sinister here? we all know that at this point mueller knows a lot that's not publicly known. if there's, in fact, some sort of a conspiracy around the election, is there a quid pro quo here? and is the president repeating these sorts of fantasies not

because he's been influenced to believe them but because this is him delivering on a deal? that's, of course, a conclusion that no one i don't think is ready to go quite that far, but if you're an investigator, you have to be looking at all the possibilities. as chuck says, 19 interviews with mike flynn seemed really inexplicable early on. we're standing to understand a little bit more why they might have had so much to discuss with him. >> and joyce, let me hit you with this. it was just handed to me. axios reporting that the grand jury being used by robert mueller has been extended an additional six months, signaling the special counsel's investigation into the trump campaign's ties to russia may not be wrapping up any time soon. your thoughts, joyce. >> yeah, so, this is a process that prosecutors use with some regularity. if you're working on a case -- and grand juries are established for a set number of months -- if the grand jury is reaching the end of its term but prosecutors aren't quite done, rather than

having to bring a new grand jury in, install them and completely get them up to speed, it's typical to extend the grand jury for a period, as here, of six months. it does strongly signal that mueller is not ready to finish up in the next month or two and has a little bit more work to do. >> chuck, same question to you. this extension of the grand jury means there are potentially more witnesses to appear before the grand jury. what else does it mean? >> absolutely. joyce is spot on in her analysis. first it is relatively routine. you could put the entire case in front of a new grand jury, but it's easier to extend the one you have. and it doesn't just mean witnesses, nicolle. it means the mueller team can also use the grand jury, the existing grand jury, to subpoena documents and records. so i don't think joyce is surprised, although i shouldn't talk for her. she's a lot smarter than me. and i can tell you that i'm not that surprised that this investigation is not over.

every time something else happens, we find reason to want to have more questions that we need to answer. this is what's going on. this is fairly normal in a remarkably abnormal investigation. >> chuck, let me press, then, on this grand jury. i mean, if there is now sort of a critical mass of foreign policy maneuvers that may recast the president's role in that counterintelligence investigation you talked about, could you imagine new people coming in? would h.r. mcmaster, who was unceremoniously sacked from this white house many months ago, and dina powell, his deputy, they were in the oval office with lavrov and kiss liz lick. if this becomes under scrutiny as his former intelligence officials suggested, could you see some of the individuals who were part of the making of foreign policy or maybe around when donald trump shared his impulses and instincts on russia with russians and others -- could you see mueller wanting to

hear from them how foreign policy was crafted? >> oh, absolutely, nicolle. look, just because flynn was interviewed 19 times doesn't mean flynn was the only person interviewed. in fact, far from it. i assume that all of the people who were in those meetings, whether it's dina powell or h.r. mcmaster or others, have been interviewed. that doesn't mean every single one of them has to go in front of the grand jury. obviously, you can talk to investigators outside of the grand jury, and that's a reasonably common occurrence, too. but you bet they're tualking to everybody, because people have different and innocent recollections of meetings. you want to get as much data as you can. you want to talk to as many people as you can. and that's why these investigations take longer than you expect. he's talking -- he, mueller, is talking to a whole bunch of people. >> ambassador mcfaul, i made a list of people i could think of who lied about their contacts with russians, mike flynn, jeff sessions, george papadopoulos, paul manafort, rick gates, jared

kushner, donald trump jr. and michael cohen. i asked jim comey, former fbi director, why donald trump, with new information from michael cohen, that he was actually trying to do business with russia into the summer of '16, why he wouldn't represent the same threat for blackmail that flynn would. and here was his answer. i want to ask you about it. >> do you think the russians have something onthese are more thought i'd utter about a president of the united states, but it's possible. >> that was the far better interview where george stephanopoulos asking probably a smarter question of jim comey. but basically, what former director comey said to me was that he couldn't answer the question. do you think there is a serious concern that donald trump was susceptible to blackmail or manipulation because the russians knew more than the american government? >> i would just echo what the former fbi director said, it's possible, and we need to get to the bottom of it.

that's why mr. mueller needs to do his work. but it is extraordinary. i just want to underscore where you started. it is just absolutely extraordinary what president trump says about russia and russian history and russian policy. and i want to also underscore, it's separate from the entire trump administration. i can't think of another time in history where you've had such a disconnect between the president and the rest of his administration. that demands a full-throated explanation. >> well, we didn't get to, and i haven't seen you since secretary mattis resigned over the syria decision. >> yes. >> that had to be at the top of vladimir putin's current honey do list for a current president, rewriting the history of russia and afghanistan, ancient history even for putin. but your thoughts on maybe why more people haven't followed in secretary mattis' courageous path for the exact reason you just articulated. >> well, you're right, that was a giant gift to putin, exactly what he wants, and that's

exactly the way it's being described in russia, by the way. to your other point, you know, i still know some people who work in the government. h.r. mcmaster is here now, by the way. brett mcgurk is on his way. he'll be here at stanford in the spring. we should have a seminar out here maybe and sit down with all of them. maybe mattis will be back, too, by the way. i don't have a serious answer. i think people get in the bubble and they think, well, better to keep duking it out here than to go out, but when these crazy things happen, how do you justify it? does john bolton, for instance, think that the soviets were right to invade afghanistan? of course he doesn't. why is he not doing his job better? he's a national security adviser sitting just steps down from the oval office. that's his job to make sure that the president doesn't say stupid, ridiculous, and for me as an educator, embarrassing things on behalf of the united states of america. >> that's as good a place as any

to hit pause. ambassador, thank you, chuck rosenberg, thank you for spending time with us. when we come back, hypocrisy alert as president trump threatens to have the government shutdown go on for years, years! over illegal immigration. new reporting reveals that his golf courses have been hiding illegal immigrants who work at those properties from the secret service. we'll go inside donald trump's shutdown mania. also ahead, donald trump's twitter feed is a window into his impeachment angst. we'll show you how he's softening the ground for possibility of his own impeachment. and it turns out donald trump's sons are a flop in the hotel business. new reporting reveals how some of the trump hotel business plan for last year ground to a halt under the cloud of investigation and scandal hovering over donald trump's presidency and tarnishing the trump brand. all that still coming up. stay with us. all that still comp stay with us >> tech: at safelits we know that when you're spending time with the grandkids... ♪ music >> tech: ...every minute counts.

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you know, i talk about human traffickers, i talk about drugs, i talk about gangs, but a lot of people don't say we have terrorists coming through the southern border, because they find that's probably the easiest place to come through. they drive right in and they make a left. not going to happen. not going to happen. so, we're not going to do that. we won't be doing pieces. we won't be doing it in drips and drabs. >> not only was that statement nearly devoid of facts, you might have noticed it also didn't make a lot of sense. for better or for worse, republicans, that is the man leading discussions to end the government shutdown. and 14 days in, cracks are starting to show in the gop's united front, most notefully two big-name gop senators, cory gardner and susan collins, are

backing off the demand for border wall funding to end the shutdown. but ever present in every step of the process is trump and his approach to deal making. during the last meeting on wednesday, the "washington post" reported, "vice president pence leveled a sharp accusation at senate minority leader chuck schumer. he never bothered to respond to an offer to reopen the government that pence made days earlier." turning to trump, schumer reminded him that he said this week he wouldn't accept less than the $5.6 billion in wall funding that was approved by house republicans late last year, far more than the $2.5 billion pence was proposing. george conway put the whole mess this way -- "ah, yes, how many times have we seen this now? undercut and contradict your representatives so no one will deal with them. nothing gets accomplished, but at least you remain the center of focus because that's the only thing that matters. the narcissist's art of the deal." good one. joining us at the table, reverend al sharpton with "politicsnation" here on msnbc

and president of the national action network and jackie alemany with power up newsletter. charlie and philip are still here. we haven't gotten to you guys, so we'll start with you. where are we? what is this moment? >> this moment essentially comes down to whether or not donald trump wants to give up on his assertion that he wants to see this wall built, right? i mean, this is the point that was just made -- >> well, it's down to slats, right? >> exactly, yes, the steel slats, the beautifully artistically designed steel slats. >> then we alternate concrete wall, like obama -- >> today he never said concrete, so we have to -- >> we're back to slats. >> i mean, to point that was just made, the only person who can negotiate and have final sign-off and authorization of what trump wants to do is trump when he has something in front of him that he's deciding on, all right? we thought we had a deal prior to the holidays where there was going to be government funding. donald trump after apparently having heard conservative radio and having watched fox news decided that's not what his base wanted, so that's not what he wanted to do, so everything changed. i think that senate minority leader chuck schumer's absolutely correct in saying

whatever mike pence brings to me, sure, that's nice, but at the end of the day, if donald trump says he's not going to do anything with that, there's no point in moving forward with that. so it comes down to the point that the small part of america which is holding donald trump's feet to the fire on the wall, either he gives up on trying to appease them or he actually does let this thing go on for months or years. >> right before the holidays, a source close to the president -- i called them after the mattis resignation and basically said wtf is going on with your friend? and he said, he's scared. he's scared of mueller and he's terrified of his base. i don't see that happening. >> no, he is terrified of his base, and potentially, ann coulter and rush limbaugh have a veto power over all this. he's now in a fight with his own generals, which obviously is someplace he doesn't want to be. so, but at the moment, i think donald trump likes this particular fight. he's talking about something he likes to talk about. he likes to talk about something that plays well in his rallies. he now has a foil that he can blame with nancy pelosi, but he

has no exit strategy. at some point -- and we've seen donald trump do this in the past -- he will declare victory in some way, but he's got to do it in such a way that he can save face. but there's two things that were reckless -- >> but there won't be a wall. >> there won't be a wall. >> and the shutdowns are never popular, so he's not going to run the first years-long popular shutdown. >> yeah, no, but he's the guy who could have the pile of you know what in the driveway and say there's a pony buried in there. >> right. >> this is donald trump. but two things i think were reckless about what he said today we've got to take seriously. his threat, which may be meaningless, to keep the federal government shut down for years. imagine the ceo of a major corporation with thousands of employees and stockholders saying i'm going to shut down the corporation if i don't get what i want. number two, this idea that he might invoke a national emergency powers to have the military build this, this should be a fire bell in the night in terms of constitutional division of power. this is the one thing that i would think on a bipartisan basis congress would say, look, we can't go in this direction because there is no emergency at

the border. the number of illegal crossings are actually down to levels we haven't seen since the 1970s. but the president unilaterally reserving to himself that power ought to alarm people in congress, if there are people in congress that are concerned about the separation of powers. >> let me push you on that. we've only got two defections in republican ranks, senator collins and senator gardner. do you expect more? are you hearing any reporting that more are behind them? >> no, not at the moment. but again, we've asked this question for how long, when are republicans going to break with donald trump? when are they going to speak out? when we have general mattis -- >> two years, 11 months and seven days! >> hey, better late than never! and mitt romney comes out and basically says out loud what republicans are saying in private. so, you know, you still have that solid front, but you get the sense that it's eroding inside. and wait until we see the public opinion polls. who's getting the blame for this? as the pain becomes greater, how

far are they willing to go, particularly given the president's behavior and performance over the last several days, how can you not be an elected official and watch some of these crazy grandpa simpson moments and think, do we really want to go down into the, you know, tense circle of hell with this president on this issue? >> it's a good name for a sitcom, where we are now, the tense circle of hell. i think it's also a test of how much he can abuse his base, because there's new reporting out in "the new york times," the "washington post," that his own properties, they are hiding the illegal immigrant status of workers. so, he is shutting -- the whole federal government is closed. it is all shut down for illegal immigration, ostensibly. he has illegal immigrants working at his own properties. he doesn't even believe his own bs. >> the reports about what he's doing at his own properties is a glaring display of how he just talks out of both sides of his mouth and expects his base to just accept it because he said

it. this is the man that said if i shoot somebody in the middle of the street on fifth avenue, they would still vote for me. but to stand up today and said, by the way, i can do this with an emergency act, i'm not going to do it, even though they're terrorists, the boogieman is coming. nobody's seen him but me, but the boogieman is coming. i could do an emergency act, but i'm not going to do it. and 800,000 workers, federal workers, furloughed or getting late pay. they really want this because they understand getting the boogieman who doesn't exist is more important than them being able to pay their bills. i mean, the arrogance of someone to say that and then say, and i may do it for a year, by the way, but i don't have to because i could do the emergency act, but i'm going to make you suffer anyway, but i don't have to do it. >> i'm desperate to know how putin gets him to stay on script, but that's for another conversation. let me just read you some of

this reporting about undocumented workers at his properties because this feels like the kind of story that everyone will be able to get. any small business owner understands the extra hurdle of workplace verification. it's not something trump talks about a lot. obviously, we know why now. it's not something he does. a former employee of the trump national golf club in new jersey said her name was removed from a list of workers to be vetted by the secret service after she reminded management that she was unlawfully in the united states. latest worker to assert that supervisors at the elite resort were aware, were aware that some members of their workforce were undocumented. this is just -- this is just mind-bending, that he shut down the whole government, that workers are furloughed. and i understand he doesn't have the capacity for empathy, but the capacity for hypocrisy is staggering. >> and i think it speaks to the fact that the president is really playing politics here and it's only a matter of time before public opinion turns against him. and you know, if there currently isn't a national security crisis on the border, but trump has the

potential of manufacturing one himself with 800,000 furloughed workers in important parts of our government. and you know, i think charlie hit the nail on the head here. the president is thinking about his base. he's thinking about what sean hannity, ann coulter, breitbart are saying to his base. but you know, last night we saw hannity even tried to interject some sort of leeway and suggest that the president was potentially considering a daca deal, giving him potentially some sort of out. but you know, we'll see what comes out of this meeting over the weekend. but as you stated right off the bat, either the president's intermediaries have sort of been neutered in this process. i don't think anyone necessarily believes that mike pence and mitch mcconnell have the ability to make a deal. it is the president himself. >> and no deal would hold. i mean, at this point, even if he -- i don't think the president has the power to strike a deal, because if he turned on the television, which drives everything, it's not state-run media, it's the media-run state, and they didn't like it, he'd go back and

undercut himself. >> yeah, and i think also what the president is keeping in mind is something that lindsey graham explicitly said this weekend on fox news, which is that if the president doesn't get a wall, there goes 2019, that there goes 2020. >> hmm, imagine that. after the break, how can you impeach the president who has won perhaps the greatest election of all time, said no president ever until this morning. we'll tell you about it, next. e morning. we'll tell you about it, next. shaquem get in here. take your razor, yup. alright, up and down, never side to side, shaquem. you got it? come on, get back. quem, you a second behind your brother, stay focused. can't nobody beat you, can't nobody beat you. hard work baby, it gonna pay off. you got this. with the one hundred and forty-first pick, the seattle seahawks select. alright, you got it, shaquem. alright, let me see.

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it took less than one day after the democrats regained the majority in the house for the president to address the possible threat of his own impeachment. he was on the defensive, tweeting this morning and echoed those sentiments out in the rose garden this afternoon. >> you can't impeach somebody that's doing a great job. that's the way i view it. i've probably done more in the first two years than any president, any administration in the history of our country. and we even talked about that

today. i said, why don't you use this for impeachment? and nancy said we're not looking to impeach you. i said, that's good, nancy. that's good. but you know what, you don't impeach people when they're doing a good job, and you don't impeach people when there was no collusion, because there was no collusion. you know russians better than i do, kevin, okay? there was no collusion. i didn't need russians to help me win iowa. i didn't need russians to help me win the great state of wisconsin and michigan and pennsylvania. i won them because i went there and i campaigned hard, and my opponent didn't go there enough. >> joyce, i'm going to start with you. i've got nothing. i mean, bill clinton had a 67% approval rating, was doing a very good job and he got impeached. and can you be impeached for being crazy? he just laid out the case right there, my god. >> you know, impeachment is not about a popularity contest, about who likes you. it's about accountability. and so, i guess in president

trump's world, the fbi can go and talk with somebody that they think robbed a bank. maybe the evidence isn't complete, but they say, you know, we've got video of you walking in and you come out with money and it's not yours, and we're looking into this. and the would-be bank robber says, oh, no, didn't commit a bank robbery. in president trump's world, the fbi's just supposed to stand down, that ends it. president trump says there was no collusion, nobody with any sort of additional authority should look into it, and that's just not how this works. congress is supposed to engage in oversight. >> rev, you know him. i say that with love. i don't want to get you in trouble with any of your friends by saying that. but impeachment seems to me to be the thing that we all know keeps him up at night because of the way he talks about impeachment and tweets about impeachment. what do you hear when you hear him talking about it in such a frantic, desperate, pathetic way? >> i think you hear him talking

in a frantic way. he's fearful, because he always comes back to defending himself, no matter what the subject matter is. to say and/or suggest that you can't impeach me because i am popular or i won wisconsin -- >> which he's not, by the way. he's not popular. >> well, if that was the case, he'd be already gone. but to say because i won these states and because i'm saying i've done the best of any president in two years is somebody that is afraid of dealing with the facts. someone that is confident of their innocence or really thinks even bringing it up is absurd will say come on with the facts, let's lay it out, i'm going ahead and continuing being president. he can't get away from that because he is really afraid, which makes many of us feel there really is something there, and he knows it. >> you've sghot great reporting in your piece about the weirdly

quiet white house. you write, "it's been more than a month since trump even played golf, the longest stretch of his presidency. it's been more than a month since he held a rally. the only sporadic public meetings. he's not even tweeting that much. there's this idea that on days when he's unoccupied, he tweets a lot, but that's not really true since july 1st, 2018, he's tweeted on average 11.1 times a day. over the past week, he's tweeted an average of 8.4 times a day." what's your theory? >> my theory, essentially, is that donald trump didn't really know why he didn't go to mar-a-lago and was just sitting around the white house doing nothing. it's not complicated. he was sitting there and watching fox news and getting mad things and tweeting on occasion. at the moment which that was written was particularly focused on the fact that he had all the time where he owned washington. he could have done any number of events. he could have walked down to the department of justice and said let's reopen these doors by calling -- and he just sat in the white house and watched tv, which is remarkable. i think that he's sort of starting to get back on track. we saw this event today.

i think it's very ironic that he was standing in front of kevin mccarthy, a guy who was reported during the campaign to say there are two people on putin's payro payroll, one of which is donald trump and mccarthy just has to stand there. but his argument made sense for a lot of reasons, but i think it goes back to his base. as long as his base loves him, he knows the republican senators aren't going anywhere, and impeachment is a non threat. so it comes back to keeping the base happy, that keeps the republicans in line and impeachment goes away. >> he also reveals in that comment that he doesn't understand nancy pelosi, that he walked in and asked nancy if she's going to impeach him. i worked for a president who had to legislate with nancy pelosi but also was a political adversary to nancy pelosi, and she's good. >> yeah. and you know, the president started off thinking that he would actually be able to cut a bunch of deals with chuck schumer and nancy pelosi and had more of a kinship and comradeway

with these two people than he did with the republican party. but i think trump has a little bit of a point here. the comments, profanity-laced comments about impeaching the party aren't necessarily welcome in the democratic party at this time. yes, speaker pelosi said she's open to impeaching the president, but it's not popular with voters and a lot of democrats are reticent to do it. if you talk to newt gingrich, who had to resign after failing to successfully impeach president bill clinton, i don't think -- i think he says he probably wouldn't have done it again either. harvard politico survey this morning said that out of 21 possible priorities for the new congress, impeaching trump was the lowest out of their priorities. >> okay, so, assume all that to be true. why is he so pathetic on the topic? assume all that is spot on. why is trump tweeting about it first thing when he wakes up? why is he going to nancy with open arms saying, please, don't impeach me, then telling us in the rose garden, he said she

wouldn't. what's wrong with them? >> i think he's concerned about indictments with members of his own family. there are a lot of threats he's facing. but going back to the point about the democrats. i heard an interview with jerry nadler, incoming chairman of the house judiciary committee on this, essentially saying we're going to be very, very cautious about this. we are not going to do this unless we have the facts. don't get ahead of ourselves. we don't want to tear the country apart. and i think he's very conscious of the lessons of the previous impeachments. the name people ought to remember is peter roe dino, who was chairman of the house judiciary committee during the nixon impeachment. and one of the things that he understood was how essential it was that this not be perceived as just a partisan hit job, and he made sure that everything involving nixon was bipartisan. he kept the southern democrats in line. and you'll remember that this didn't really break until you actually had the smoking gun tapes. so, we've had other impeachments that were perceived to be excessively political or partisan, and there is a high potential for backlash.

i think that nancy pelosi and jerry nadler and the other leaders really seem to understand that. at least that's my sense. whether they can hold their base is another thing. >> rev, go ahead and i want to give joyce the last word. >> but i think it goes to something deeper in donald trump's psyche. i think, yes, he's concerned about indictments of family members, but i think you've gob to understand, he is a man who all of his career was treated like he was not qualified to be who he was. he wasn't in the inner circles of power in the new york real estate world. you are not one of us. impeachment says you really are not good as president, you don't qualify to be sitting in that seat, and that speaks to the soul, that speaks to the deep insecurity in donald trump. he wants the validation that i proved to everybody i was legitimate, and impeachment takes away that legitimacy, which is what he's been fighting for all of his life. >> he should have thought of that before he, you know,

muddled around with the russians. i want to ask you the last question, though, joyce. let me ask you. i mean, i haven't heard any of the democrats on the committees investigating the trump campaign's ties to russia, potentially, say anything about rushing to any sort of political process. i've heard adam schiff and eric swalwell and everyone on those investigative committees talk like you talk, like prosecutors pursuing a fact pattern. are you hearing anything from the committees with sort of the authority and responsibility of investigating whether or not crimes took place speaking in any way that gives you pause as a former prosecutor? >> no. in fact, just to the contrary. everything that i hear is very reassuring. there's a measured tone coming from the democratic party. it says let's wait and see what mueller has. let's wait until we know what all of the evidence is. we can complete our investigation. because many parts of it were cut off by the republicans. so we need to go back and hear from witnesses and ask, for

instance, donald trump jr., were you calling your dad in the middle of setting up the trump tower meeting in june of 2016? here's why this is frightening to trump. it's not just for the philosophical reason that rev identifies, although i think that's incredibly important. pragmatically, impeachment is a terrible threat to this president, because if he is successfully impeached, if some bombshell drops in the mueller report that brings republicans to the table, once he's out of office, he's no longer immune from indictment. it's not just the threat of indicting his children. impeachment poses the threat that donald trump himself could be indicted. that i think is what's driving the madness. >> that's a really important point. let me just ask you to underscore that. that is based on the statute of limitations for charging people for crimes out of the southern district, for example. can you just explain that a little more for us, joyce? >> yeah, sure. so, there's a five-year statute of limitations in the federal

system for most crimes. it says you can only be prosecuted for five years from the time you've committed a crime. so, that can be a long statute with a conspiracy charge because it's five years from, for instance, the last act that concealed a conspiracy. but if trump is worried about prosecutors in the southern district of new york, then that clock is running. and if he is impeached within the next, say, year, he would be out of office and fair game for prosecutors of the southern district of new york, well within the statute of limitations. >> i feel like 2019's going to be interesting, joyce. when we come back, the trump presidency is bad for business! we'll bring you new reporting on the hotel projects at a standstill under the direction of trump's two sons. stay with us. [ doorbell rings ] janice, mom told me you bought a house. okay. [ buttons clicking ] [ camera shutter clicks ] so, now that you have a house, you can use homequote explorer. quiet. i'm blasting my quads.

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you might or joints.hing for your heart... but do you take something for your brain. with an ingredient originally discovered in jellyfish, prevagen has been shown in clinical trials to improve short-term memory. prevagen. healthier brain. better life. plans by the president's company now headed by his two sons to expand its hotel business to more rural areas have come to a standstill. that's according to reporting by "the washington post." maybe the numerous probes are taking their toll. quote, investigators are also swarming the company and that is putting it at risk of having to disclose private financial information in court cases and before congress now that democrats have taken over the house of representatives according to congressional staff. just how big is that swarm around the businesses? here's what we know. we know that mueller has

subpoenaed the trump organization. we know former attorney michael cohen and cfo alan weiselberg have been cooperating with federal prosecutors. we know donald trump jr. testified before congress about his contact with russians and we know the entire organization is in the cross hairs of the southern district of new york as well as the new attorney general in new york state who said she will investigate anyone in trump's orbit who has violated the law. joyce and the panel are still here. joyce, this reality, this reality that what he probably views as an empire, what his own friends say was a funky family office, is very much under threat of being destroyed, demolished and becoming a criminal liability by his presidency. >> there are so many questions that so many different prosecutors are looking into involving the trump organization. there's even a threat from civil

litigation from ethics groups that are challenging whether the president's continued involvement in these businesses, failure to put his assets into a blient trust is something that approaches a violation of the emoluments clause. so the irony for trump could be that by failing to set aside those businesses into a sort of a protocol where he wouldn't be able to influence the outcome in any way or do anything to encourage people to patronize his businesses, he may have put the entire, let's just call it an empire, at risk. >> god bless your colleague david finegold for reporting on the emoluments. emoluments had a different name. he said it sounded like lotion. if it wasn't a weird name we would talk about it every day, but this does seem to be the less sexy, less dramatic but perhaps graver threat to trump and his family. >> and probably scares him more because, you know, this is the

heart of his self image. donald trump has always been the scam artist. we found out the foundations were a scam. among stories we've lost track of, new york state forced him to shut down his foundations and he's been banned from philanthropy. think about that for a moment. >> that's great. philanthropy -- >> he cannot be trusted to be engaged in philanthropy but he still has his finger on the nuclear button. >> that's incredible. >> that red line has been obliterated. this has always been a flimflam operation and he's never had transparency. they never thought he would have transparency. you wonder if he knows or what happens when they lift up that rock, when they find out all of these things that are going on? that it may have nothing to do with russia or a may lot do with russia, but what we know is somebody made up his own rules as he went along because he

thought nobody was looking, nobody would ever find out and they're finding out now. >> what does it say about the trump family dynamic that the sons are now earning bad press for the president? you don't have to know them at all to know that that's all the president cares about, the headlines, the press, the coverage. he's a tv addict. anybody that loved him would worry about his screen time. now the boys are getting him terrible press about the thing he cares about the best, the so-called business empire. >> i think that it says in many ways trump is now looking at who's a liability to him. >> correct. >> and i think that anybody's that's a liability to him ought to be careful, and i don't think anyone is excluded from that. maybe his daughter. i think though when you look at the fact that you have a president who now is new jersey business we are told has people that he knew i wiare here illeg,

a foundation is closed down as charlie's just talked about in the state of new york, what would make us think he's running his other businesses correctly? he'd have to be schizo to be doing something perfect here and everything else we know about was done in this manner. so if he is consistent, we already know there's reason for them to have a lot to fear in terms of picking up that rock because all the ants we see around the rock are clearly in violation of many ethical questions. >> do you think we do a good enough job stretching our tentacles into these other investigations that aren't perhaps as sexy or dramatic as the mueller probe? >> i do think so. the problems are not as dramatic or sexy. david farenhold did the reporting that wasn't as sexy. >> we had him here. do you think, joyce vance, that we take our eyes off of all of

these multi-prong, multi-faceted civil lawsuits or investigations into the businesses, people we don't hear about all the time, at our own perfect ril, do you these could be some of the shoes waiting to drop? >> there's no doubt that's the case. i don't know how you can keep your eye on the ball on a daily basis, are we up to 19 investigations, zinke resigning, news that he's under criminal investigation inside the department of justice. god bless people who can keep all of those balls in the air and be familiar with all of the details. i guess for the rest of us, we just have to spend a lot of time watching msnbc, which does a great job of staying on top of it. >> people like you explaining it to people like me. thank you. we're going to sneak in our last break. we'll be right back. that's why at safelite, we'll show you exactly when we'll be there. with a replacement you can trust.

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it's so nice to be back. my thanks to joyce vance, charlie sykes, the rev, phillip bump. that does it for our hour. i'm nicole wallace. i'll be back here monday for "deadline white house" at 4:00 p.m. good morning. welcome to "up." i'm joshua johnson, host of the public radio program 1a sitting in for david gurra. day 16 with more negotiations coming today. >> the president is not coming off his $5.7 billion figure. >> president trump is refusing to give in as the democrats demand the details of his border wall budget. >> you want the headline to be the president no longer wants a

wall, he wants a fence. >> the president is going to secu